Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Deforestation

Today forests cover about 30% of mainland. Before global wood cutting started forests covered over 60% of mainland. In Estonia forests cover nowadays about 47%. Deforestation is limited in Estonia and until 1950's the area of forests has started to grow. The general principle in Estonia is that you cannot deforest more than the forests grow in a year.

What is Deforestation?
Deforestation is defined as the destruction of forested land. It has proved to be a major problem all over world. However, the rates of destruction of forests are particularly high in the tropics.

Causes of Deforestation
The causes of deforestation vary form place to place. The most common causes, however, are logging, agricultural expansion, and mining.

Effects of Deforestation
Deforestation has been the cause of many problems facing the world today such as erosions, loss of biodiversity through extinction of plant and animal species, and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Importnace of Vegetation
Deforestation consequently decrease the supply of oxygen found on earth. Oxygen is essential to the existence of all living things and without it every living creature (including humans) will not be able to sustain life. In addition, forests provide homes for many important species such as the Northern Spotted Owl which can only survive in the northwestern United States . Furthermore, forests prevent desertification by replenishing nutrients in the land. These are just a few reasons why forests are soon important.

Ats Põdra, Kristina Oolu 12c

1 comment:

  1. The conversion of forests into agricultural plantations is a major cause of deforestation. The increase in global demand for commodities. Its not too late read IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO SAVE THE PLANET’S ECOSYSTEM!

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