Deforestation Issues

 In the new millennium, it is now one of the most overlooked issues in the United States. My estimate states that over 6,000 acres of land are developed every day (J. Mitchell, SUNY Potsdam), but it costs millions of dollars to re-grow parts of it. Since the late 20^th century through its present day, a variety of environmental organizations such as Greenpeace USA and Focus the Nation have been fighting for a long time to preserve forests through conservation along with the process of sustainability. So far, there is a mixture of wins and losses in this situation. I believe that deforestation is a shared problem across the country. Also, I believe that this issue should grab just about everyone’s attention – meaning the people who are willing to listen. For me, I can think of a few reasons why people should care and be concerned: pollution on land and in the air, wildlife endangerment, and the “legendary” status of any particular forest area across the country.

Four things are part of the economic dimensions in deforestation: excessive logging, harvesting for fuel, raising cattle, and the Slash and Burn agriculture are very popular in timber companies. They give a variety of construction workers extra jobs, money, and hours. Logging is the number one threat to the old growth forests across the northwestern United States, for example – which is familiar to this next cause. The Slash N’ Burn agriculture is also a threat to forests as well, most likely tropical rainforests. After a set of acres of land is cleared by this cause, with very low population density, the land is used for 2 to 3 years and then left alone for up to 10 years to replenish its nutrients (Don Bragow, “What is Deforestation”). To me, that is wasting a lot of land for something that is not worth using. Why waste that much land if you are only going to use a small set of acres for something that you really want?

Air Pollution has a connection with deforestation through the issue with Greenhouse-Gas Emissions. Research shows that up to 30% of global greenhouse-gas emissions each year were caused by the loss of forests (Toni Johnson, “Deforestation & Greenhouse Gas Emissions”) around the world such as parts of the Amazon in Brazil. GHG emissions results to Global Warming, Acid Rain, which damages the plants in forests. Bad weather such as flooding results from the role of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, due to the smoke from the ground up and into the air. In November of 1997, thousands of fires were set in Southeast Asia due to the Slash and Burn agriculture. The air pollution in Malaysia raised up to 6 times the level considered unhealthy (Johnson).