Deforestation is the process of cutting down trees and forests and has negative impacts on the climate.
Deforestation can be done for many reasons for example making way for other land uses eg agriculture and also to harvest the wood resources. Trees are used to make a lot of different products that we use everyday implying that we have to cut down a lot of trees to make them and this causes problems.
Advantages of trees
Deforestation is happening at a very high rate and trees are cut down at a rate of 46 trees per minute. This causes a lot of problems to the ecosystem.
Trees play a role in carbon cycling by absorbing the carbon dioxide and producing oxygen for us in a process called photosynthesis. Cutting down trees results into carbon dioxide not being absorbed and stays in the atmosphere which is a green house gas hence causes global warming.
When it rains, plants and trees absorb water and through transpiration, plants loose water to the atmosphere. The evaporated water forms clouds in the atmosphere which precipitates back as rain. The cycle is disrupted when deforestation occurs.
Mitigating deforestation effects
We can reduce the effects of deforestation by selective and partial harvesting of trees.
Protecting ecologically sensitive areas and using 3 Rs which mean reducing ie using less of tree products, reusing tree products and recycling them.
