Does anyone know about deforestation?
Forests cover 31% of the land area on our planet. They
produce vital oxygen and provide homes for people and wildlife. Many of the
world’s most threatened and endangered animals live in forests, and 1.6 billion
people rely on benefits forests offer, including food, fresh water, clothing,
traditional medicine and shelter.
But forests
around the world are under threat from deforestation, jeopardizing these
benefits. Deforestation comes in many forms, including fires, clear-cutting for
agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and
degradation due to climate change. This impacts people’s livelihoods and
threatens a wide range of plant and animal species. Some 46-58 million square
miles of forest are lost each year—equivalent to 36 football fields every
minute.
According to the
National Geographic website (2013) the ‘world’s rain forests could completely
vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation’.
The National Geographic site (2013) goes on to say ‘forests
are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to
people’s need to provide for their families. The biggest driver of
deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for
planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a
few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a
process known as “slash and burn” agriculture’.
