Over the past two decades soybean
cultivation in the Amazon by large, commercial farmers has undergone a dramatic
transformation. In just a few years, it grew to become one of the main causes
of Amazon deforestation. Using cattle to produce food for humans requires large
amounts of land to generate relatively small amounts of food. As ranchers clear
forests for pasture land; cattle and their pasture land has been an important
driver of deforestation in South America. The global market for wood and wood
products creates pressure on tropical countries to destroy their forests and
produce cheap timber and pulp (used to make paper). Palm oil production
has more than doubled in the last decade, now dominating the global market for
vegetable oil. Most palm oil is produced on large industrial plantations,
driving tropical deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. Slash and burn is a
very big problem because it takes up a lot of land that people only use for a
small amount of time, and then they stop using it, and then they move on to the
next place.
Based on this review of forest cover
the UNDP Millennium Goals score card, reported that forest cover in Belize
declined steadily over the period 1990 to 2005. It is estimated that if the
trend continues unabated land covered by forest could decrease to about 56
percent or less. Estimating the amount of forest loss in countries that have
historically experienced very low rates of deforestation, such as Belize is
particularly important given the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism under development through the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as part of the
post-Kyoto climate negotiations.
 |
| Figure 1: Pictured above is a scale to amount of types of deforestation around the world. |
Work Cited
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/stop-deforestation/drivers-of-deforestation.html#.VG5MdfnF-PI
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/deforestation_update3.php
http://biological-diversity.info/deforestation.htm
Figure source:
Figure 1:Figure 1: https://www.google.com/search
Figure 1:Figure 1: https://www.google.com/search
No comments:
Post a Comment