Deforestation

Deforestation

Humans are known to modernize the world we live in at the expense of the environment. From drilling in Alaska for oil in order to be able to provide gasoline for our automobiles, to destroying the ozone layer with the pollutants from factories and such, humans continue to tear Mother Nature apart. One major way humans do this that is getting out of hand is deforestation. This process of clearing trees is year by year depleting the amount of forest that covers earth’s surface. Deforestation, both humanly caused and not, is a major problem that needs to be given more attention, not only for the sake of the environment, but ours as well.
Deforestation is executed most commonly in one of two fashions, cutting the trees down or burning an area of forest. More often than not the cutting of trees is the method chosen due to the fact that the lumber can then be sold or used. Usually, when it is a large corporation clearing land in order to utilize the land being cleared for whatever purpose the trees are cut in order to reap the most profit possible from the job. The clearing of land is not only performed by corporations, but by farmers and governments as well.
Despite who the one clearing the land is, most clearing is executed for agricultural purposes such as grazing cattle or planting crops. Poor farmers chop down a small area, typically a few acres, and burn the tree trunks in a process called “Slash and Burn” agriculture. For agriculture on a much larger scale several square miles at a time are cleared. Large cattle pastures often replace rain forest to grow beef for the world market. Commercial logging is another reason for deforestation. Trees are cut in order to sell as timber or pulp. Logging occurs selectively, where only the economically valuable species are cut, or by clearcutting, where all the trees are cut. Commercial logging utilizes heavy machinery, such as bulldozers, road graders, and log skidders, to remove cut trees and build... [continues]

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