Global Deforestation/Desertification
The estimated rates of global deforestation are astounding.
Approximately 2.4 acres of forestland are cut down every second (the equivalent of 2 football fields). That figure equals 150 acres per minute, 215,000 acres per day (an area larger than New York City) and 78 million acres per year (an area larger than the nation of Poland).
Deforestation occurs primarily through the cutting down and burning of trees.
Burning releases carbon dioxide (Co2) into the atmosphere helping to promote global warming. In addition, fewer trees means a lessening of the global forest's ability to absorb Co2.
Further, deforestation leads to land degredation which diminishes the land's ability to catch, hold and retain rainwater, thereby causing increased runoff and flooding in the wet season and water shortages in the dry season.
Nearly 60% of the world's temperate rainforests have already been logged. If current deforestation rates continue, scientists estimate that nearly all tropical rainforest ecosystems will be destroyed by 2030.
Global desertification is similiarily a serious global environmental threat.
Some 30 percent of the Earth's surface today suffers from some form of desertification.
More than 80 of the 110 countries in the world who are experiencing desertification are poor, underdeveloped nations located in the Southern Hemisphere of our planet- countries least able to cope with the encroachment.
The problem is most acute in western and southern Africa.
According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD),
"drought and desertification threaten the livelihood of over 1 billion people in more than 110 countries around the world".
The ability of the land to provide food and sustain life is affected primarily by global climatic change and the extreme loss of biodiversity in any given region, but human activity is by far the major cause of desertification.
Land permanently degraded by global desertification increases by 10 million hectares (the size of Nova Scotia) every year. It is estimated that global warming will increase the total area of desert land on Earth by nearly 20% in the 21st century.
Both Deforestation and Desertification can only be reversed by profound changes in people's consumption patterns and behavior. The vulnerability, sustainability and maintenance of the global ecosystems that undergird our continued existence on Earth as human beings must learn to be respected and cared for at the most fundamental of levels.
Step by step, changes must ultimately lead towards sustainable land use and the growing necessity to retain and insure food, water and climatic security for a growing world population into the 21st century.
Steve Jones
P.O. Box 1574
Mt Shasta, California
96067
USA
E-mail: bluestar7747@yahoo.com
SOURCES:
1. Rainforest Action Network (RAN)
221 Pine St- #500, San Francisco, California 94104 USA
Website: http://www.ran.org
2. World Rainforest Movement
Ricardo Carrere, Maldonado 1858, Montevideo 11200, Uruguay
Website: http://www.wrm.org.uy
3. Deforestation: The Global Assault Continues
World Resources Institute, 10 'G' St- NE, #800, Washington DC 20002 USA
Website: http://www.wri.org
4. International Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
P.O. Box 260129, Haus Carstanjen, D-53153 Bonn, Germany, European Union
Website: http://www.unccd.int
5. Impacts
World Population Awareness
P.O. Box 2533, Placerville, California 95667 USA
Website: http://www.overpopulation.org
6. Web Resources on Desertification
Website: Web Resources on Desertification
7. Deforestation and Desertification
Website: MAP: Deforestation/Desertification
8. Desertification and Deforestation in Africa
Website: Article: Desertification and Deforestation in Africa
9. World Watch Institute
1776 Massachussetts Ave- NW, Washington DC 20036 USA
Website: http://www.worldwatch.org
10. Rainforest Alliance
65 Bleecker St, New York, New York 10012 USA
Website: http://www.rainforest-alliance.org
