When a tree is cut down, it loses the ability to filter and balance out toxins like carbon in the atmosphere. This is now making our ecosystem fail. When a forest goes down, either tropical or temperate, because of the carbon overtake, this can amplify climate effect making things extremely cold and extremely hot. Our forests are under pressure from global change, and this is impacting the animals and people that thrive from it.
Deforestation is where land environment is taken down in order to make space to create things like houses, buildings, farms, etc. For our daily uses, which can not be reused or remade again. An estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year, according to (FAO). About half of our world's tropical rainforests have been wiped out. Deforestation happens around the world, but most the time rainforests have been particularly targeted. Some major deforestation places are Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other parts of Africa, as well as parts of Eastern Europe. Indonesia tops the charts with at least around 15.79 of hectares of forest. Though in the past few 50 years forests have increased, more than 90 percent of the United States’ indigenous forests have been removed. Thus being said the increase in forests today still aren’t even close enough to make up for what we have lost and are still currently loosing of our forests worldwide.
Half of our trees are illegally removed. Most of the reasons for deforestation are more land available for housing, to harvest the wood for things like fire, to create ingredients from and out of the trees, and to create room for farming. Some of the common methods for clearing are burning trees and clear cutting, which can be bad for our environment. These methods leave the land scarred and often leave disagreements from the public. When we do a method like burning trees we damage the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as destroy the wildlife in it. Fire releases CO2 into our atmosphere which is carbon dioxide, the element we exhale. We obviously can not inhale the element and it does not help us in much cases, but it is their version of our oxygen. Plants of all kind need this to survive.
We have an overdose of CO2 in our atmosphere which is great for plants but they can only take in so much and with our shortage of trees we have less intake of CO2 and now it is infecting the atmosphere in a bad way. The carbon increase and tree decrease is going to soon affect not just the forest but oceans too. As I have learned in science carbon has a cycle. This cycle consists of coming from rainfall, oceans, back into atmosphere, and into plants, and around again. The carbon overtake is making our oceans more acidic which affect the marine life, which are a dependency for the ecosystem. Without things like the coral reef, the nursery for all marine life, we lose one of our ecosystems main food sources. This is caused by the overpopulation of carbon dioxide. Now deforestation isn’t the only reason we have excessive CO2, but it is a main cause. The best way to help this is to keep our trees healthy and keep adding plants and vegetation seeds to help grow the population.
This problem is affecting the animals that live in the forests as well as the fruits and plants that grow there. Without the animals and fruits that we humans use, our ecosystem is beginning to crumble. Today scientists have estimated that by 2050 the raindrop level will decrease by 21% in the dry season and 12% in wet season. Without this water animals and plants will die off. Rainforests used to cover 14% on our Earth, and now it only covers barely 6%. Not only plants and animals are dying off, but people are too. There were an estimated 10,000,000 Amazonians living in the Amazon 500 years ago, today there are less than 200,000. This is already killing off the top of the food chain.
Some people say that this is just a natural part of Earth for the world to just slowly have a downfall, but have a big comeback later on. In some places they say we are even gaining more forests, and maybe we are, but it isn’t enough and it could be close to too late. In a few articles I have read we are losing tropical rainforests like the Amazon, but we are gaining forests else where too getting used to and adapting to the changes. We have seen large vegetation increases in places like Australia. Despite this outburst of vegetation, we are experiencing extinction rates from animals and crops in places that have been populated by these organisms for decades. Because of the carbon and climate change it is killing off our sources for food and water. These new forests aren’t going to help these animals in need because the forests don’t give them the necessities they need to survive.
