Deforestation and the Economy

During this century it has become quite evident that, we are causing such a great travesty to our dear mother earth. It has been shown that if we as it’s inhabitants don’t take care of her she won’t have much to give us in return. In specific I am talking about our natural resources such as forestry and natural greenery. Unless we can decrease the amount of forest clearing and wood use and implement replacing them, we will ultimately deplete our wood resource.

Also our ability to construct things for daily living for all species. We have to get it together.

Educating people on the history and causes of deforestation

One of the cultures that has suffered tremendously and collapsed due to deforestation, prior our existence has been the Classic Mayan States. One man named John Wingard (1992) used a computer simulation of the land in the Copan Valley to assess the degree, extent and effect that the practices of this civilization had on the natural environment. Because of their agricultural practices of building and rebuilding, modeling and remodeling for their daily use as well, contributed heavily on the downfall of that society. The destruction of forest is occurring due to various reasons, one of the main reasons is the short term economic benefits. Just like the Mayan civilization we are continuously taking and taking from the earth and not replenishing it. The chopping down of trees for furniture, construction materials, and certain paper products have a major impact on forestry. Illegal logging in certain areas that have been forbidden areas of the Amazon has also contributed to a heightened level of deforestation. This environmental issue has quite the effect on things such as flooding, cultural displacement (Mayan civilization), and agricultural losses. Population increase has a major impact on the rise of deforestation, simply because the more people on earth the higher the demand for using wood for thing that are necessary to human life. As stated by Sing C. Chew

“High levels of population do impact on Nature, and the exponential growth of population over world history has generated stresses on the environment…” (3) Urbanization is also one of the major contributing factors of deforestation, due the advancement of human beings and technology. There have been many areas that have been cleared of rainforest and jungles to make way for the urbanization of cities. One example in particular in today’s world is the alarming rate of parts the Amazon being depleted due to developments in regions of Brazil. Urbanization includes clearing of land masses to construct skyscraper buildings, playgrounds, schools, chemical and electrical plants. Again things we as human beings have deemed important to human life and sustainability.

Effects the lack of trees and forest clearing have on the environment

From the beginning stages in school we learn about the life cycles of plants and the benefits of the relationships between plants and humans. It should be common knowledge that we provide plants with carbon dioxide and in return they turn that into oxygen to help us breath. So what do you think will happen if we continuously take away our means of converting that said carbon dioxide into oxygen? What will be left to breathe? With that being said, it is our duty look into the effects that forest clearing will have on human survival. It is also our duty to look into the habitats of other species that we share this planet with. In some countries, there are instances where alligators, snakes, and other wild animals have made their way into civilian homes. Think about it like this, if you wake up one day and your house has just disappeared, would you wander around? Wouldn’t you go look for the next place to lay your head and find food. We need to wake up and care for not just ourselves but other species who inhabit this planet. Also simply because these animals are being wiped out by not having any means of habitation. So therefore if the animals are wiped out and that interrupts the cycle of life, that trickles down to our sources of food and again our survival. One of the studies done by Stephen Gorman concluded on the impact deforestation had on wolves:

Wolves were once plentiful in the Northern Forest. Indeed, wolves were once the most widely distributed mammal in the Northern Hemisphere. For millennia they coexisted with the moose, deer, caribou, beaver, and other small animals that formed their prey base in this region. But like other Northern Forest animals, wolves have been profoundly impacted by human activities. Overhunting, habitat fragmentation and destruction, and depletion of prey populations took a serious toll. By the early 1900s wolves were gone from the Northern Forest… The disappearance of the timber wolf mirrors the loss of wilderness in the United States, and this region is no exception. A top carnivore and a species whose presence indicates ecological well-being, the timber wolf requires healthy forest ecosystems to survive. That the wolf is not present in the Northern Forest suggests the forest ecosystem is incomplete and dysfunctional. The explosive growth of prey species, including moose and deer, indicates this imbalance.

In the killing of these wolves it, the amount of deer-inflicted accidents has increased. Again affecting the well-being of human survival. “The flourishing deer herd, larger today than prior to European settlement, has also become something of a nuisance, if the roughly 3,400 deer-car collisions that occur annually in Maine alone can be considered such. Since wolves and cougars prey upon moose and deer, some conservationists have recently been calling for returning the wolf to the Northern Forest to help reinstate a balance.” (Stephan Gorman, Rumors of Wolves)

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