Eighty percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes. It is estimated that we are losing 137 plant, animal, and insect species every day which equates to 50,000 species a year (National Geographic). Orangutans, giant pandas, rhinos, and the Asian elephant are just a few of hundreds of endangered species due to deforestation. Removing trees thins the forest canopy which is meant to block sun rays during the day and holds in the heat at night. This damaging disruption leads to extreme temperature swings that are harmful to plants and animals.
The high demand for more farmland helps drive the need to cut down more trees, which in turn, contributes to deforestation. Tropical forests have the highest impact rate when it comes to deforestation due to agriculture. In the tropics, only the topsoil is highly fertile, so when the nutrient-rich soil is gone, people cut down more trees to find more fertile topsoil. Tropical forests lose thousands of acres daily due to agricultural use. One way people take out trees for agriculture us is a process called “slash and burn”.
Campbell 1 Deforestation and Endangered Animals Animals are becoming extinct for many different reasons, the main reason being deforestation. Deforestation is the destruction of habitats which leads to loss of food, water, shelter and protection. Because of this, more animals are becoming endangered, or even extinct. The amount of forests cut down, the effects it has on the animals/habitats and in the growing list of endangered animals Thought Co. www.thoughtco.com/how-species-become-endangered-1181928. Accessed 1 May 2017.
The world’s most expansive forest, the Amazon, is the site of the greatest projected loss of natural life-sustaining habitat and beauty due to deforestation which makes efforts to conserve the forest and save its defenseless inhabitants a critical priority and essential duty of our time. Deforestation affects the world in a negative way, with the most dramatic impact being the loss of habitat for millions of species. In fact, “80% of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests.” (National Geographic Deforestation 1) Animals would lose shelter, food resources, and breeding area. Without an ample number of trees, the forests would lose its canopy which would cause extreme temperature swings that are lethal to plants and animals. The loss of trees also impacts climate change, since trees aid the water cycle by returning water vapor to the atmosphere.
The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species. Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes. The more workable solution is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to make sure that forest environments remain intact.
An estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year, due in part to logging and other human practices, destroying the ecosystems on which many species depend. Habitat loss is a result of deforestation, which is als caused from exploitation of resources, agricultural conversion, and urbanization. It is a largest factor contributing to the loss of biodiversity. Large scale infrastructural developments and the expansion of settlements contribute to deforestation, therefore habitat loss. For example, between 1984 and 2017 about 30% of forests are cut for human settlements.
Deforestation brings many effects either to society or country. It impacts a country’s economy, the life of community, environment and extinction of species. The causes of deforestation are logging, agriculture croplands and pasture expansion, urbanization and more (Ebenezer 2015). Some methods used in deforesting are burning the trees or clear cutting the trees. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2005 cited in Ebenezer 2015) reported that the global forest area is around 4 billion hectares corresponding to 0.62 hectares per capita, but it is decreasing by 13 million hectares per annum.
The authors explain how every minute there are cut around four hundred threes in Amazon forests . More precisely, twelve to fifteen million hectares of forest are lost each year, the same as thirty six football fields a minute. The forest, and all the diversity, and life in it is being burned with the slash and burn method, just to get more space for animal farming. This means that they can clear land quickly, but it is very bad for the environment because it realises big amounts of Carbon Dioxide. This process is destroying the natural habitat of all the millions of diverse spices that Amazon has to offer, as well as killing the total of two thirds of the word's plant spices.
Land pollution causes the land’s productivity and potential to decline to such a level that the purpose of utilising lands for building infrastructures, housings, services, agriculture, forestry and many more for the development of human being are no longer achievable (Prabhakar, 2012). Land pollution are resulted by some sources which are deforestation, mining and construction activities. Deforestation appears to be the major concern as once the land is converted into dry lands, it can hardly be made fertile again. Those areas inevitably end up as waste lands. Mining requires the removal of topsoil containing valuable organic matters.
Do you know that agricultural lands cover 31% of the earth? And because of deforestation processes these lands are disappearing. Deforestation is defined as removing the forests which includes trees, and plants to make the land accessible for different uses. Forests are important as it is a home of many creatures and it also surrounds the earth with large quantities of oxygen and the disposal of carbon. Some species are suffering from deforestation actions because they depend on these trees and plants as a shelter and as a food source.