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Essay on Deforestation

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Deforestation is a major global problem with serious consequences to the planet. These consequences have a negative effect on the climate, biodiversity, the atmosphere and threatens the cultural and physical survival of life. Deforestation is the permanent destruction of indigenous forests and woodlands. It has resulted in the reduction of indigenous forests to four-fifths of their pre-agricultural area, so that now indigenous forests cover only 21% of the earth's land surface. The world Resources Institute regards deforestation as one of the worlds most pressing land use problem. It is now so bad that every minute an area of forest equal to 20 football fields is lost.

Rainforests cover less than …show more content…

Logging tropical hardwoods like teak, mahogany, rosewood and other timber for furniture, building materials, charcoal and other wood products is big business and creates big profits. Several species of tropical hardwoods are imported by developed counties, including America, just to build coffins which are then buried or burned. The demand, extraction and consumption of tropical hardwoods has been so massive that some countries which have been traditional exporters of tropical hardwoods are now importing the wood because they have already exhausted their supply by destroying their native rainforests in slash and burn operations. It is anticipated that The Philippines, Malaysia, The Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Thailand will all run out of rainforest hardwood for export within the next five years.

In addition to logging for exportation, rainforest wood stays in developing countries for fuel wood and charcoal. One single steel plant in Brazil making steel for Japanese cars needs millions of tons of wood each year to produce charcoal that can be used in the manufacture of steel. Then there is the paper industry. A pulpwood project in the Brazilian Amazon consists of a Japanese power plant and pulp mill. To set up this single plant operation, 5,600 square miles of Amazon Rainforest was burned to the ground and replanted

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