Deforestation occurs for many reasons: trees are cut down to be used or sold as fuel (sometimes in the form of charcoal) or timber, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock, plantations of commodities and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also been used in war to deprive the enemy of cover for its forces and also vital resources. Modern examples of this were the use of Agent Orange by the British military in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency and the United States military in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Among countries with a per capita GDP, net deforestation rates have ceased to increase. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland. Control • Reducing emissions Main international organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank, have begun to develop programs aimed at curbing deforestation. The blanket term Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) describes these sorts of programs, which use direct monetary or other incentives to encourage developing countries to limit and/or roll back deforestation. • Payments for conserving forests Deforestation in upper river basins has caused environmental problems, including soil erosion and declining water quality. An innovative project to try and remedy this situation involves landholders in upstream areas being paid by downstream water users to conserve forests, avoid polluting livestock practices, and enhance the biodiversity and forest carbon on their land. • Farming New methods are being developed to farm more intensively, such as high-yield hybrid crops, greenhouse, autonomous building gardens, and hydroponics. These methods are often dependent on chemical inputs to maintain necessary yields. In cyclic agriculture, cattle are grazed on farm land that is resting and rejuvenating • Monitoring deforestation There are multiple methods that are appropriate and reliable for reducing and monitoring deforestation. One method is the “visual interpretation of aerial photos or satellite imagery that is labor-intensive but does not require high-level training in computer image processing or extensive computational resources”. • Forest management Efforts to stop or slow deforestation have been attempted for many centuries because it has long been known that deforestation can cause environmental damage sufficient in some cases to cause societies to collapse. In Tonga, paramount rulers developed policies designed to prevent conflicts between short-term gains from converting forest to farmland and long-term problems forest loss would cause, while during the 17th and 18th centuries in Tokugawa, Japan,[148] the shoguns developed a highly sophisticated system of long-term planning to stop and even reverse deforestation of the preceding centuries through substituting timber by other products and more efficient use of land that had been farmed for many centuries. • Sustainable practices Certification, as provided by global certification systems such as Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification and Forest Stewardship Council, contributes to tackling deforestation by creating market demand for timber from sustainably managed forests. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO • Reforestation In Western countries, increasing consumer demand for wood products that have been produced and harvested in a sustainable manner is causing forest landowners and forest industries to become increasingly accountable for their forest management and timber harvesting practices. The Arbor Day Foundations Rain Forest Rescue program is a charity that helps to prevent deforestation. The charity uses donated money to buy up and preserve rainforest land before the lumber companies can buy it. • Forest plantations To meet the worlds demand for wood, it has been suggested by forestry writers Bodkins and Sedro that high-yielding forest plantations are suitable. It has been calculated that plantations yielding 10 cubic meters per hectare annually could supply all the timber required for international trade on 5% of the worlds existing forestland. Water Quality Issues He most obvious problems affecting the Great Lakes were inputs of nutrients and oxygen-demanding materials, largely from direct piped discharges from municipal wastewater treatment plants and industries. In particular, excess phosphorus led to algal blooms near the shorelines that interfered with recreational uses and caused taste and odor problems in drinking water. As mats of dead algae settled into bottom waters, oxygen levels plummeted, causing fish kills. Lake Erie was the most vulnerable to these problems due to its shallow depth, warm temperatures, and many wastewater discharges. To a lesser extent, Lake Ontario and natural embayment’s such as Green Bay and Saginaw Bay experienced similar problems. Major Pollution Control In recent years, several major environmental laws have been amended to contain features relevant to Great Waters or specifically to the Great Lakes basin. Clean Air Act contains provisions related to water and land ecosystem impacts from the deposition of air pollutants, with particular emphasis on toxics. Under the Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act programs, the Toxics Release Inventory improves the knowledge base for life-cycle tracking of wastes from industrial processes and encourages recycling and pollution prevention efforts. Ecological risk assessments of the threats posed by waste disposal facilities are becoming more sophisticated, and progress under the Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments program holds promise of reducing pollution impacts from toxic sediment.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:51:09 +0000
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