Deforestation Case

Deforestation:

This removal of forest or trees from a land and converting it for nonforest use is called deforestation.

Deforestation is one of the major issues causes Global Warming. Let's take a quick look at the reasons that drive man to destroy beautiful forests.

Why Deforestation Happens:

Factors:

1. Urbanization

The world population is increasing day by day. As the population of Southeast Asian countries increases rapidly, there is a huge increase in demand for houses. More and more forest areas are being cleared to provide living space. For example, Bukit Antarabangsa in Malaysia used to be beautiful rainforest until the recent decade where most parts of this hill were cleared and developed into housing areas.

2. Agriculture

There is a growing number of people in the world. That means that more food is needed; therefore more forests are being destroyed to make way for agriculture. Many of the new settlers were allocated small plots of land where they could grow crops, such as rice and vegetables which are planted for subsistence and other crops include coffee and cocoa which are cash crops and grown for sale, the profit gain from the sale of crops will cause agricultural expansion for farming.

Besides that, commercial agriculture also cause to deforestation. Wealthy companies clear large areas of forest to convert into farmland. For example, few decades ago, Malaysia started developing thousands of acres of forest areas into palm oil plantations. Now, even though Malaysia is one of the biggest palm oil producers in the world, we need to keep in mind that this has caused major deforestation in Malaysia. If drive along the Malaysia's North-South Highway(PLUS), you can see that there are many oil palm plantations on both side of the road at most part of these highway. Hence, you can see the magnitude of deforestation that has taken place in Malaysia.

In Brazil, rainforest is converted into pasture for cattle ranching (for beef), and for soybeans (used as raw material in many food product, and as food for farm animals).

3. Illegal Logging/ Commercial Logging

Trees are cut down for timer. This means that there is more commercial logging going on, and sometimes the trees are not grown back. Trees are cut down indiscriminately by logging companies, to fulfill the demands of the wood market. The wood is then processed to be made into products such as paper or expensive furniture. Hardwoods like mahogany are sought after for furniture and are consequently very valuable. Some time, for small number of mahogany, whole forest area is often cut down for those few trees.

Commercial logging is the major cause of primary rainforest destruction in South East Asia and Africa.

Sometimes, the forest happens to sit on land that is rich in minerals and metals such as gold, silver, copper or tin, or fossil fuels like oil and coal. In order to gain success to the natural resources underground, the forest is cleared first.

4. Transportation

Forest is cleared to make way for the construction of these transport networks. Roads and railways also make it easier for people and companies to enter the forest to extract resources. For example, the 230-km long Trans-Kalimantan Highway in Indonesia, or the 4800km long Trans-Amazonian Highway in South America.

5. Fires

Fire is use to clear forested land, as it is cheaper than employing laborers and bringing in machinery to remove the trees and vegetation. The vegetation is cleared and left to dry out, then the area is set on fire. Burning is also employed by large companies to clear large areas of forest to make way for plantation agriculture, mining and other issues. Sometimes, the valuable timber is extracted first, and the remaining vegetation is burned.

What are the Causes of Deforestation?

Effects:

There are a number of adverse effects, that include environmental and economical. Some of these effects are discussed below:

Climate Change

Climate change