Deforestation

Deforestation is the clearance of forests by logging and/or

burning (popularly known as slash and burn). Deforestation occurs for many
reasons: trees or derived charcoal are used as, or sold, for fuel or as a
commodity, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock, plantations of
commodities, and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient
reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity.
It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and
frequently degrade into wasteland. Disregard or ignorance of intrinsic value,
lack of ascribed value, lax forest management and deficient environmental
laws are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large
scale. In many countries, deforestation is an ongoing issue that is causing
extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement
of indigenous people. Because of deforestation, a lot of people suffer from
severe trauma that leads to behavior related problems that needs
counseling; psychologists are commonly asked for this task. Deforestation
leads to strong calamities that lead to destruction and even death of a lot of
people. Flashfloods, Drought, Landslides, etc. are great causes of death that
affects a lot of people that are innocent. These people also suffer from
famine and starvation once large areas of forests are cleared or deforested,
these people are might be affected physically or psychologically. That’s why
the government agencies that are involved in these cases tend to send
psychologists to guide and counsel people for the situation to get worse.
When forests are killed, nature basically requires people to renew the forest.
Reforestation is one concept that is in the opposite direction as
deforestation, but is proven to be a much harder effort than deforestation.
So the rate of deforestation has not been offset by the rate of reforestation.
Thus, the world is now in a troubled state when it comes to issues
concerning the environment. Pollution is rapidly growing along with
population. Forests are greatly helping reduce the amount of pollutants in
the air. So, the depletion of these groups of trees is greatly increasing the
risk that carbon monoxide would reach the atmosphere and result in the
depletion of the ozone layer, which in turn results to global warming. One
major effect of deforestation is climate change. Changes to the surroundings
done by deforestation work in many ways. One, there is abrupt change in
temperatures in the nearby areas. Forests naturally cool down because they
help retain moisture in the air. Second is the long process of global climate
change. As mentioned above, deforestation has been found to contribute to
global warming or that process when climates around the world become
warmer as more harmful rays of the sun comes in through the atmosphere.
The ozone layer is a mass of oxygen or O3 atoms that serves as shield in the
atmosphere against the harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. Because
ozone is made up of oxygen atoms, oxygen react with carbon monoxide.
Such reaction would use up oxygen atoms. It follows that when there are
more carbon monoxide atoms going to the atmosphere, the volume of
oxygen would decline. Such is the case of ozone depletion. The third effect
to the environment would be on the water table underneath the ground.
Water table is the common source of natural drinking water by people living
around forests. Water table is replenishing. That means, the supply of water
underground could also dry up if not replenished regularly. When there is
rain, forests hold much of the rainfall to the soil through their roots. Thus,
water sinks in deeper to the ground, and eventually replenishing the supply
of water in the water table. Now, imagine what happens when there is not
enough forests anymore. Water from rain would simply flow through the soil
surface and not be retained by the soil. Or other than that, the water from
rain would not stay in the soil longer, for the process of evaporation would
immediately set in. Thus, the water table is not replenished, leading to
drying up of wells. Because of deforestation, a lot of people are affected,
dying and losing their homes. That is why it is one major problem of a lot of
countries today. Deforestation is hardly hitting the living conditions of
indigenous people who consider forests as their primary habitats. Imagine
how they are rendered homeless when forests are depleted. These natives
would be forced to live elsewhere, and are usually left to becoming
mendicants in rural and urban areas. Overall, effects of deforestation cannot
be offset by the contribution of the practice to development. While it is
logical that progress is very much needed by mankind, it must also be noted
that nature knows no defeat. Destruct it and it would certainly retaliate, one
way or another. A lot are affected physically and psychologically.