Deforestation

Artists paint them, lovers carve their initials on them and birds build their nests in them. Trees provide us with food and shelter not to mention clean air. They provide us with shelter from the sun as well as furniture for our homes. Why then are we trying to eliminate them?   It is a fact that a third of the land surface of our planet was once covered with forests. Today less than half of those forests remain. A third of what is left is under severe pressure and will soon disappear. According to the Rainforest Action Network, for each minute we are here discussing this tragedy 150 acres will be cut down. The forests we are demolishing are irreplaceable. We are just coming to realise the actual results of our wrongdoing.
For the developed world this news is a double-edged sword. In the U.S. 95% of native forests have already been lost. Across Britain and Europe centuries of industrialisation and the cutting down of timber has left numerous forests a mere fraction of their former sizes. Yet in the US, Japan and Europe the demand for timber is as strong as ever. Unable to supply our own timber for building or paper, we put pressure on third world countries to supply us. In Indonesia alone, approximately 5 million acres are being wiped out each year.   That is an area the size of Belgium.   In Borneo, forests have been burned, logged and cleared since 1950, and are projected to further diminish over the upcoming decade.   These areas represent habitat for species, such as orangutan and elephants.   In Brazil, the Atlantic rainforest once covered a million square kilometers. It is now only 5% of its original size.   Charcoal production, uncontrolled logging and the pressure for land have eaten into the rainforest, displacing those native to the area, and laying waste to acre after acre. The resulting fires from clearance send smoke and smog into the atmosphere. In Indonesia and Malaysia deforestation is so bad that people cannot move around during the burning without... [continues]

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