Issues In Deforestation

ISSUES IN DEFORESTATION AND DESERTIFICATION
Introduction
Deforestation is a conventional environmental challenge substantially affecting the resilience and distribution of forests across different boundaries. It’s simply defined as the loss of tree cover usually as a result of forests being cleared for alternative land uses (Gorte and Sheikh, 2010).
In the past, the world has experienced unprecedented loss of its forests especially in tropical areas, though the observation on a global scale shows the rate of deforestation has shown a sign of decrease. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2010), in the 2000s about 13 million hectares of forest were converted to other uses, primarily agriculture or lost through natural causes

It results from the deliberate removal of forest cover. This conversion of forest to an alternative permanent non-forested land use such as agriculture, grazing or urban development. It is seemingly a primary concern for the developing countries of the tropics causing loss of biodiversity and enhancing the greenhouse effect.
In addition to conversion, it also includes degradation which reduces forest quality, density and trees structure, supply of ecological services, the biomass of plants and animals, diversity of species and genetics.

Drivers of Deforestation
The drivers of deforestation are complex and interconnected. Underlying, or indirect, drivers constitute an interplay between demographic, economic,technological, policy and institutional and cultural and/or socio-political changes. In reality deforestationis caused by a combination of direct and indirect drivers, making the fundamental causes hardto pinpoint (Murdiyarso, 2008).

For instance, in the forest fringe communities of Ghana, the loss of forest resources through activities like wild‐meat production, fuel wood and charcoal production, wood‐carving and canoe‐carving, rattan production, chew stick‐gathering, chainsaw lumber production and hunting have positively affected about 2 million people who engage in such as livelihood activities (Domson and Volsky,