By Sehrish Arshad
With the world growing at a pace hard to match, the increasing need for space is turning out to be an area of concern. With desperate need for land for agricultural, industrial and most importantly urban needs to contain cities and their growing population, a direct action that we have come to recognize as “Deforestation” occurs. Deforestation in simple term means the felling and clearing of forest cover or tree plantations in order to accommodate agricultural, industrial or urban use. It involves permanent end of forest cover to make that land available for residential, commercial or industrial purpose. Forests cover 31% land area on our planet. They produce oxygen and provide homes for people and wildlife. World’s most dangerous animals lived in the forest. Almost 1.6 billion people rely on the benefits of forest that they provide food, fresh air and fresh water, clothing, traditional medicine and provide shelter to the most of species. Deforestation is a common issue all over the world. An estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest, which is roughly the size of the country of Panama, are lost each year, according to the United Nations’
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).In Pakistan deforestation increasing day by day. The main cause of deforestation is urbanization due to overpopulation it is difficult to manage the people at small space, so trees are being cut to make houses for residence. The second major reason for deforestation is agricultural to make need for food trees are cutting down to grow the crops and cattle grazing. Wood based industries also need wood in huge amount to make furniture and match boxes so they need to fell down the trees. Wood is also used as fuel for fire. Firewood and charcoal are examples of wood being used as fuel. Some of these industries thrive on illegal wood cutting and felling of trees. Oil and coal mining require considerable amount of forest land. Apart from this, roads and highways have to be built to make way for trucks and other equipment. The waste that comes out from mining pollutes the environment and affects the nearby species. One factor of deforestation is that many factories throw their chemical waste into the fields and land making the land unfit for the growth of trees.
Deforestation affects the climate in more than one ways. Trees release water vapor in the air, which is compromised on with the lack of trees. Trees also provide the required shade that keeps the soil moist. This leads to the imbalance in the atmospheric temperature further making conditions for the ecology difficult. This haphazard clearance of forests has forced several of these animals to shift from their native environment. Due to this several species are finding it difficult to survive or adapt to new habitats. Trees play a major role in controlling global warming. The trees utilize the green house gases, restoring the balance in the atmosphere. With constant deforestation the ratio of green house gases in the atmosphere has increased, adding to
Deforestation causes soil erosion, under shade of trees the soil remains moist. With the clearance of tree cover, the soil is directly exposed to the sun, making it dry and causes the soil erosion. Trees are the best source to prevent from flood. When it rains, trees absorb and store large amount of water with the help of their roots. When they are cut down, the flow of water is disrupted and leads to floods in some areas and droughts in other. Forest are the habitat for animals and different species ,when they cut down causes the species move to somewhere else, they didn’t adjust into new environment and causes the extinction. We have lost lot of species of plants and animals in the last couple of decades.
The best solution to overcome the deforestation is government should banned the deforestation, Cutting of tree should only be done by the employees of government according to rules and laws. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by the planting of enough young trees to replace the older ones felled in any given forest. Many NGOS are working to replace the trees which have been cut down and improve the environment. The number of new tree plantations is growing each year, but their total still equals a tiny fraction of the Earth’s forested
