What is the reason behind deforestation? Our Earth’s trees keep disappearing at a very quick rate, but for what? Before more trees and forests get destroyed, we need to stop and ask ourselves one question. Why are we doing this?
Deforestation is happening due to humans wanting to expand the population and increase industrial development. Some examples of what is destroying our forests are logging, dam building, clearing land for livestock grazing, oil extraction, cutting trees for fuel, and mining operations (West). Logging is the process of “cutting down trees and transporting the logs to sawmills” (Dictionary). According to The Nature Conservancy, logging alone is destroying 32 million acres of our Earth’s forests every year. After knowing that, how fast do you think the sizes of our forests are decreasing? Currently, forests still cover about 30% of our planet’s surface, but approximately 78,000 square miles of forests/trees are converted to agricultural land or for other purposes every year (West).
In conclusion, are trees and forests being destroyed for necessary reasons? In my opinion, people are not doing this for the right purpose and I don’t think people realize how quickly the size of our forests are decreasing. I think it is going to be too late before we realize what we are doing to our Earth, so steps to stop this need to be taken as soon as possible.
Video Link: "CNN Explains: Deforestation" *Watch from 0:39 to 1:17
Citations:
“CNN Explains: Deforestation” YouTube, uploaded by CNN, Sep. 23, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4jhjt1_eyM
West, Larry. “What is Deforestation?” ThoughtCo, Feb. 7, 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/overview-of-deforestation-1203589
“logging” Dictionary, 2019, https://www.dictionary.com Feb. 19, 2019