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Forest – a complex ecological system in which trees are the dominant life form
Deforestation – the process of clearing of trees
Forest and deforestation, both powerful words with major responsibilities. Forests cover almost one-third of the surface of Earth, but that won’t last long. Deforestation has many consequences. Trees have a very important role in life; they cleanse the air, control global warming, provide habitats for animals, secure our soil, and much more. We also need trees for medicine, wood, nuts, and fruits. Wood is a wonderful resource because there are so many types of it. There are also many types of cutting wood and some are better for the trees than others. It is true that we need wood, but deforestation is the wrong way to do it.
Trees play very important roles on Earth. They provide shelter for animals and plants alike. Some of the animals that live in forests in Canada are squirrels, beavers, deer, hummingbirds, raccoons, bats, owls, and so many more. Many animals, such as the wolf, are endangered, and need a suitable habitat. Meares Island, in British Columbia, is one of the few places that you may still find wolves. About a decade ago, there were already logging plans for Meares Island. It contains aboriginal reserves, as well as a huge forest. The forest on Meares Island contains Canada’s largest known living cedar tree with a circumference of 61 feet, and it is about 1500 years old! The forest doesn’t only have one large tree, but also contains other trees such as Western Hemlock, Sitka Spruce, White Pine, Red Alder, Cascara, Pacific Willow and Western Yew. The trees on Meares Island have been living untouched for thousands of years. Many plants depend on these trees too, such as mosses, lichen, salal, licorice ferns, sword fern, large shrubs, salmonberry, and huckleberry. Trees provide wonderful ecosystems, which can be destroyed from deforestation.
Forests are also wonderful for our atmosphere. They take in the carbon dioxide, which creates greenhouse gases, and give out oxygen, which we breathe. Our cars and factories have been creating more and more carbon dioxide and there are not enough trees to clean the air, which means that the evaporated air gets polluted and causes acid rain. The roots of trees also keep the soil in place to prevent soil erosion and maintain water levels. As the ground water gets soaked into the earth, some of it returns to a body of water, but some is soaked up by tree roots. As that water goes though a tree’s body to its leaves as water vapour (a process called transpiration), it condenses in the air into clouds. If the trees are destroyed, there would be extra water, because of the water not soaked up by the trees, which could cause flooding. Also, the soil would be eroded by the water, causing landslides. Another negative effect would be less moisture in the air to form clouds, as water vapour only forms from the heating of the bodies of water.
Humans also get medicine, rubber, fruits, nuts, and of course wood from trees. One of Canada’s main trees is the Maple tree. They provide us with maple syrup. Trees not only save the planet from destroying, but also provide us with many supplies.
If you see a dead tree on the ground, people may say that some trees died of Asian beetles or another very unlikely reason. Trees, like us, have immune systems, but when contacted with something very serious it weakens the system. Some forms of air pollution can have effects on a tree similar to that cocaine can have on humans. With added vulnerability from acid rain, the tree would have been weakened and dying already. The beetles just kill it at the end, because a tree wouldn’t be able to resist it. That is similar to a weak human that could die from something that they normally could have prevented.
Over the past decade, about 150 million hectares of tropical forest have been destroyed. Tropical forests make up almost half of all the forests on Earth. If this continues, soon there would be no more trees left in the world. Some scientists say that in year 2050, trees may be extinct. Could you imagine trees going extinct? About 78,000 square miles of rainforests are disappearing every year, which is like losing the area of 40 football fields filled with trees per minute!
"A senior scientist at NASA …figured out that it would only cost $5 million to keep a watch on rain forest destruction. In comparison, the US and the USSR (US space organization) spend at least $5 billion each on spy satellites that take pictures of each other’s weapons."
If this is the government’s view on deforestation, then it may be possible that in 2050, trees would become extinct, or maybe even earlier.
There are three different ways to cut down trees. These methods include clear cutting, shelterwood cutting, and selective cutting. Clear cutting is where people just cut every single tree in an area, and plant some new trees that are the exact size and shape for easier cutting next time. Shelterwood cutting is when a small patch of trees is left to grow back. Selective cutting is when only 5% of the trees in an area are cut and only the best-suited trees are cut. Using this method, none of the very young trees or very old trees is cut. All of these methods of cutting have their own advantages and disadvantages. Clear cutting is very harmful to the environment, but is cheaper and easier than the other two ways. Shelterwood is moderately harmful and costly. Selective cutting is very expensive and it only cuts 5% of all of the wood, but it is the most environmentally friendly technique. Most companies would use clear cutting because of how cheap it is and how easy it will be for them in the future. The trees of exact shape and sizes would really appeal to logging companies. What they don’t think about is what it does to the forest. Sometimes, hundreds of trees could be cut for one piece of furniture, to meet consumer’s expectations.
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