Deforestation

Large scale deforestation in tropical areas, for timber and to provide land for agriculture, has:
− increased the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (because of burning and the activities of microorganisms)
− reduced the rate at which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and ‘locked-up’ for many years as wood.
Loss of forest leads to reduction in biodiversity. Some of the organisms that are lost may have been of future use.

Below are two satellite images of the same region in Brazil. One in 2000 and the other in 2006.

Why are we cutting down our tropical rainforests so quickly?

As populations grow in developing countries there is a growing demand for land. This land is needed to provide space to build and to produce the food that this growing population needs.

The trees chopped down provide lumber for building and export. Much of this wood is from rare trees such as mahogany and so is a valuable resource.

Many of these countries are very poor. It is easy for us in the developed west to criticize their efforts to reach the standard of living that we take for granted. When we had our industrial revolution we showed little respect for the environment.

Why does it matter?

Rainforests such as this one in Costa Rica contain thousands of different species. One could argue that they have just as much right to life as we do on this planet and so it is morally wrong to deprive them of their natural habitats. Many useful materials and chemicals are derived from exotic plants. If they become extinct then we may be losing a very valuable resource. Perhaps one of these plants contains a chemical which may be used to develop a cure for cancer. Much of the vegetation is destroyed by burning. This releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which contributes significantly to global warming. The rainforests have been described as the lungs of the Earth.