Why We Need to Protect The Forests of the World
Forests have been used by humans since the beginning of civilization for hunting, harvesting trees and other activities. As populations grew there became a need to manage forests for the benefit of humans as well as the animals, plants and insects that live in them. Conservation forestry is the part of forestry that focuses on protecting and conserving forests. There are different aspects to conservation forestry including conservation activity in the forest as well as research of species and eco-systems that exist within the forest.
Forests serve many purposes on earth and each one of these is a science. Providing timber and raw materials for building homes and furniture is just the beginning. Forests also conserve water with erosion control and natural water quality management. They are the habitat for wildlife which, if disrupted, can devastate a whole area. Forests are also natural sinks for carbon dioxide while emitting oxygen into the atmosphere, provide recreation facilities and are beautiful.
Forestry began in the Han Dynasty in 206 BCE to 220 AD by the landowning gentry and is also recorded in the Ming Dynasty 1562 to 1633. In Europe, forest management began in the Middle Ages by the kings who held the hunting rights but allowed peasants to gather building materials, firewood and graze animals. Managing the forest for sustainable timber began in the 16th century in Germany and Japan.
After 1825, France and Germany established schools of forestry and only in the 19th and early 20th century were forestry programs started in the United States, Europe and British India. With the increased technological advancements of logging companies where thousands of trees were harvested in a short period of time, laws were enacted to protect forests.
Rain forests are in a class of their own. They once covered 14 percent of the earth's surface and now they cover 6 percent. They contain biological treasures that mankind has not yet uncovered, but they may all be gone in 40 years. The land owners, multinational logging companies and many governments cannot see beyond the short term value of the timber.
Today, 121 prescription drugs that are sold all over the world come from plant derived sources and 25 percent of Western medicine comes from rain forest ingredients. There may be cures for many diseases in the rainforest plants that we will never be able to discover. The U.S. National Cancer Institute states that there are 3,000 plants that work against cancer cells and 70 percent of them are in the rain forest.
Approximately 50,000 species of plants, animals and insects disappear every year. The human population that lived in the Amazon rain forests is also dwindling. They have reduced from 10 million five centuries ago to 200,000 today. Europeans have wiped out 90 indigenous tribes since 1900 along with their vast knowledge of the medicinal value of the local plants. This reason alone is enough to protect the forests of the world for the benefit of future generations.
Along with the people, plants and animals being destroyed every year, a huge swath of greenery is destroyed which has been called the lungs of the earth. The Amazon rain forest is an enormous carbon dioxide sink transforming it into 20 percent of the world's oxygen. It also holds one fifth of the world's fresh water.
The enormous biodiversity of the rain forests of the world should be protected. There is a greater variety of fish in one pond in Brazil than in all of Europe's rivers. One rain forest preserve in Peru has more species of birds than in the whole United States. One tree in Peru had 43 different species of ants which is approximately the same as in the United Kingdom. Twenty-five acres in Borneo may have more than 700 species of trees which is equal to the number of species in North America. There are more fish species in the Amazon than in the entire Atlantic Ocean.
Tropical hardwoods are in demand all over the world. In some cases this demand has depleted the forests of several countries and will deplete Malaysia, the Philippines, Nigeria, Thailand and the Ivory Coast in the next five years. There are 15 ton logging machines that can turn 200 hardwood trees into chips in a few minutes.
Even if rain forests are replanted, the original ecosystem will never return. The plants and animals that depended on those plants will perish when the canopy is gone and they are exposed to the sunlight. With wide spaces between destroyed forests, birds and other animals cannot reach other areas to pollinate or drop seeds. Unlike some deciduous forests in the northern latitudes that can be replanted, the rain forest cannot successfully be recreated.
Climate change is another major reason to protect the forests of the world. The Earth's oceans and land temperatures have risen steadily between 1880 and 2010 with the major change after 1960. Scientific consensus is that this occurred by human activities especially by deforestation as well as burning fossil fuels which emit carbon dioxide. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the global surface temperature may rise from two to 11 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius. This warming will be felt the strongest in the Arctic with the melting of sea ice, glaciers and permafrost which will cause sea level to rise. Extreme weather will become more commonplace with heat waves and droughts, heavy rainfall and flooding. All of this will affect species extinctions and agricultural yields. Deforestation is considered one of the main causes of climate change.
Individuals as well as governments can do their part to protect the forests of the world. Knowledge of the importance of forests needs to be spread so that people become aware of the danger to everyone and everything on Earth by deforestation. Trees should be planted in large numbers everywhere a forest has been destroyed. Governments as well as local groups can do this. People should be encouraged to only use plywood and timber that is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. Make more forest areas national parks to protect the ecosystems and wildlife. The names of companies that are severely damaging the forests should be brought to the attention of the people by the media and companies that use sustainable practices should also be named. People can then support the products of the environmentally friendly companies.
The Forest and the Environment
If you want to know more about Agrosoferestry of forest and the impact on the environment, do checkout following informative websites.