Running Head: Deforestation

Deforestation: A Review of Literature

The University of Texas at El Paso

Aaron Gomez
 Abstract

Deforestation is clearing Earths forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to

the quality of the land. Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the

land available for other uses. An estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest,

which is roughly the size of the country of Panama, are lost each year, according to the United

Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2015). With this happening, NASA predicts

the worlds rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of

deforestation. Ironically enough though, the biggest cause of deforestation is agriculture. The

second is illegal logging. Logging operations, which provide the worlds wood and paper

products, also cut countless trees each year. Furthermore, forests are also cut as a result of

growing urban sprawl as land is developed for dwellings. Considering these many factors, not all

deforestation is intentional. Some are caused by a combination of human and natural factors like

wildfires and subsequent overgrazing, all in which may prevent the growth of young trees. What

not many people know though is that deforestation can have a negative impact on the

environment. The biggest and most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species.

About eighty percent of Earths land animals and plants live in forests, many in which cannot

survive the deforestation that destroys their homes. Another impact that deforestation drives is

climate change. The soils of forests are moist, however without protection from the suns heat

and rays, they quickly dry out. Trees also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water

vapor to the atmosphere. Without trees to fill these roles, many former forest lands can quickly

become barren deserts. The purpose of this literature review is to define the causes of

deforestation and its effects it has on the climate, while also explaining certain ways to prevent

and reverse it.

 Introduction

Forests are one of the many entities that help produce and sustain life on the planet. They

produce vital oxygen and provide homes for people and wildlife. Many of the worlds most

threatened and endangered animals live in forests, and 1.6 billion people rely on benefits forests

offer, including food, fresh water, clothing, traditional medicine and shelter. Unfortunately

forests around the world are under threat from deforestation, jeopardizing these benefits.

Deforestation comes in many forms, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and

development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. This

impacts people and threatens a wide range of plant and animal species. As much as 46-58

thousand square miles of forest are lost each year. This is equivalent to 48 football fields every

minute. Forests also play a critical role in regulating the Earths climate. Forests act as what is

called a carbon sink (Gorte, 2010). Carbon sinks is the soaking up of carbon dioxide that

would otherwise be free in the atmosphere and contribute to ongoing changes in climate patterns.

Deforestation undermines this important carbon sink function. It is estimated that fifteen percent

of all greenhouse gas emissions are the result of deforestation. Many people are unaware of this

fact. A study done by a pair of researchers (Ramdane Alkama and Alessandro Cescatti) with the

European Commission's Institute for Environment and Sustainability (2016), found satellite data

that showed both global forest cover and land surface temperatures, that forest loss causes an

increase in temperature variations in areas of deforestation; which tends to lead to an increase in

mean and maximum air temperatures. It also causes a significant amount of warming when

compared to carbon dioxide emissions from land-use change. Another factor that is rather harder

to control is preventing wildfires. Fires are a natural and beneficial element of many forest
landscapes, but they are also problematic when they occur in the wrong place, at the wrong

frequency or at the wrong severity. Each year, millions of acres of forest around the world are

destroyed or degraded by fire. The same amount is lost to logging and agriculture combined. Fire

is often used as a way to clear land for other uses such as planting crops. These fires not only

alter the structure and composition of forests, but they can open up forests to invasive species,

threaten biological diversity, alter water cycles and soil fertility, and destroy the living conditions

of the people who are around the forests. Luckily enough, aside from all these issues and

problems, there is still hope to preserve the worlds natural forests. One of the biggest and

impactful organizations in fighting for deforestation is the World Wildlife Fund. They are the

worlds leading conservation organization (WWF, 2017), and works in 100 countries and is

supported by more than one million members in the United States and close to five million

globally. It is through the involvement of these countries and major organizations that we must

ask these questions to be reviewed:

1. What are the main factors of deforestation?

2. Does deforestation affect the earths climate, and if it does, how?

3. Can deforestation be reversed?

These questions will narrow the purpose of this literature review by explaining the causes and

effects of deforestation, while giving possible strategies to reduce and reverse it. This literature

review will also bring attention to this malpractice act.

What are the main factors of deforestation?

Illegal logging is not a major widespread problem in the United Sates, however the

country does act as the worlds largest importer and end user of wood. The U.S. is also one of the
worlds largest consumer of forest products. John Cook, publisher in the journal Environmental

Research Letter, states that illegal logging is the lead cause of degradation of the worlds

forests (2013). The continuation of this practice is greatly hurting the worlds forests. There are

laws that monitor and prohibit the harvesting, transporting, processing, and buying or selling of

timber. Some specific violations are trees being harvested from protected areas and then traded

illegally. More are trees are extracted at volumes higher than permitted and licenses to cut down

trees are being falsified. How it matters to the environment is important. According to the WWF,

when illegal logging takes place enormous amounts of carbon are release when trees are

harvested, (WWF, 2017). Forest trees and other plants soak up carbon dioxide from the

atmosphere and store it away as they grow and thrive. National laws regulate the production and

trade of timber products at all stages, from harvesting to processing to sales. These laws can be

violated in any number of ways, such as taking wood from protected areas, harvesting more than

is permitted and harvesting protected species. Illegal logging occurs around the world, and in

some places, illegal logging is more common than the legal variety. This destruction threatens

some of the worlds most famous and valuable forests, including rainforests in the Amazon,

Congo Basin, Indonesia and the forests of the Russian Far East (Borick, 2010). Illegal logging

also depresses the price of timber worldwide, disadvantaging law-abiding companies, and

depriving governments of revenues normally generated by duties and taxes. Poor communities

near forests are often vulnerable when outsiders try to gain control over the timber nearby, which

can lead to repression and human rights violations. The WWF works closely with other

organizations such as Eyes on the Forest, The Forest Stewardship Council, and The Trans-

Pacific Partnership, to help create laws that help regulate logging (WWF, 2017)
 Unlike many natural disasters, most wildfires are caused by people. According to Nadia

Drake, a writer from the National Geographic, the first notable wildfires came in the Southern

Hemisphere, hitting Argentina and Chile. The action shifted north to Siberia where winter and

spring temperatures came in well above normal (April 2015). Fire seasons are becoming longer

due to global warming. The area affected by especially long fire seasons has doubled, and the

frequency of long fire seasons has increased by more than half, according to research examining

the years from 1979 to 2013. More than 69,000 square miles of global tree cover was lost in

2013 alone, according to the Global Forest Watch partnership. A third of this loss was in Russia

and Canada, mainly because of wildfires. In those countries and in Alaska, there has been a steep

increase in tree cover loss in Arctic and Subarctic forests. As the planet continues to rapidly

warm, wildfires will become a growing problem, one of them being that it sends smoke across

international borders and substantially increases greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.

Consequently, the fires are not just local and national problems, they pose international

challenges. Every effort must be made to slow the pace of global warming that increasingly is

driving wildfire trends. WWF works to fight this global crisis by engaging millions of Americans

and rallying businesses and government leaders to sharply reduce our dangerous dependence on

fossil fuels, and to prepare for wildfires and the other emerging impacts of global warming.

Does deforestation affect the earths climate, and if it does, how?

Deforestation activities affect carbon fluxes in the soil, vegetation, and atmosphere. The

effects of these activities can vary, depending on the type of activity. For example, logging can

lead to carbon storage if trees are converted to wood products, and deforested areas are restored.

Efforts to mitigate climate change have focused on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions

into the atmosphere. Some of these efforts center on reducing CO2 emissions from deforestation,
since deforestation releases about 17% of all annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and

is seen as a relatively low-cost target for emissions reduction (Gorte, 2010). Policies aimed at

reducing deforestation are central points of a strategy to decrease carbon emissions, reflected in

pending legislation in Congress as well as in international discussions, such as the December

2009 negotiations in Copenhagen. Forests exist at many latitudes. Many are concerned about the

possible impacts of losing boreal and temperate forests, but existing data show little

deforestation, and their loss has relatively modest carbon consequences. In contrast, tropical

deforestation is substantial and continuing, and releases large amounts of CO2, because of the

carbon stored in the vegetation and released when tropical forests are cut down (Gorte, 2010). At

times, tropical deforestation results from weak land tenure and weak or corrupt governance to

protect the forests. Congress and international bodies are discussing various policies to reduce

carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (Gorte, 2010). The following image

depicts the tropics that are most at risk of deforestation.

Figure 1. Tropical Rainforests of the World

 Source: Prepared by CRS based on World Wildlife Fund, T errestrial Ecosystem, http:

//www. worldwildlife. org/ science/data/item1875.html. Original source is D. M. Olson et al.,

Terrestrial Ecosystems of the World: A New Map of Life on Earth, BioScience, vol. 51

(2001), pp. 933-938.

Reducing deforestation in the tropics is likely to have additional benefits as well, such as

preserving biological diversity and sustaining living conditions for the rural poor and for

indigenous communities and cultures. Proposals may be adapted to address local and regional

causes of deforestation. Various forestry practices can reduce the impacts of deforestation, and

several market approaches are evolving to compensate landowners for preserving their forests.

Can deforestation be reversed?

 Among the many concepts of deforestation, one of the hardest to overcome is restoration

of lost forests. Just like most renewable resources, forests take time to grow and replenish. Trees

are being cut down quicker, faster than they are being restored. There are multiple ways though

this can be improved. The drivers of deforestation suggest various approaches to reducing

deforestation: adjusting markets and assisting tropical countries with infrastructure and

governance. There are basically three market approaches to reducing deforestation: specific

markets for forest carbon, general markets for ecosystem services and non-timber forest

products, and certified sustainable forestry (Gorte, 2010). Markets for forest carbon are

restrictions on the amount of greenhouse gasses one can emit into the atmosphere. Ecosystem or

environmental services encompass a wide variety of benefits, including carbon storage. Forests

and other undeveloped lands provide a host of environmental services, such as climate

regulation, soil retention, waste remediation, and clean water. Landowners generally are not

compensated for these services. Some have sought ways to provide such compensation as an

incentive to landowners to keep their lands forested. Forest carbon markets are special ecosystem

services markets that could compensate landowners for the carbon storage services their forests

provide (Gorte, 2010). Lastily, the most common idea many activists can agree is to reduce the

amount of sources being used. Studies showed that most get more than the earth can put back.

Conclusion

Although deforestation is a global issue, smaller communities can make a difference.

This literary review could possibly synthesize the following conclusion: the 3 Rs Reduce,

Reuse, and Recycle. By following these basic principles, resources will be better used and last

longer. When stricter and more specific laws are enacted towards logging, forests will be

preserved at a better rate. Wildfires can better be monitored and prevented. Deforestation is not
something that affects the area it is taken place in, but to the entire climate and everything around

it. This practice can be regulated so that the ratio of cut trees to growing trees is not succeeding

it.
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