What's the cause of deforestation?
Development - Trees are normally removed to provide land for citizens to make houses and to urbanize countries. This is mostly done by either burning down the trees or by logging.
Agriculture - Trees are also burnt down to create room for agricultural growing. Burning helps to destroy the weeds and gives the plants nourishment from the ashes of the forest. Once the soil is no longer efficient for the plants to grow, the process starts again with a new area of forest. http://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html Palm oil is extracted from the fruits of palm trees and used for around 50% of all products we buy. It is the main cause of deforestation and contributes to the 300 soccer fields of land that are rid of trees every hour. Plantations for palm trees need to be in the environment like that of a rain-forest with high humidity and temperatures. Companies use the environment of rain-forest's to their advantage and wipe them out to produce the perfect home for their factorized palm trees to grow. These plantations cover around 9 million Hectares in Malaysia and Indonesia and is projected to be 26 million hectares in 2025. https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/topics/palm-oil. |
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Logging - The purpose of logging is to produce building materials for homes and for other products like wooden furniture and paper. Illegal logging is done to those ancient or endangered trees that are protected by the government for architectural uses. Illegal logging is mostly done because there is such a high demand for wood and some companies need to remove government protected rain-forests for plantations or because the specific trees that are protected have high value because of how little are still in existence. http://kids.mongabay.com/lesson_plans/lisa_algee/logging.html
Mining - Open-pit mining for resources like gold, diamonds, copper, gemstones and precious metals can result in deforestation on a large scale depending on how far into the ground miners go. They use wildcat miners to clear forests that are said to hold resources and use the wood for building materials and fuel. After mining has occurred in an area it is unlikely that any vegetation will grow there again due to the contamination of the soil and waterways within the area that was mined and because there's such a high demand for technology, Coltan is being mined everywhere, which is affecting DC Congo greatly in terms of their forests. https://troythtran.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/the-environmental-impacts-of-coltan-mining-in-dr-congo-deforestation-and-endangered-wildlife/ , http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0808.htm
Mining - Open-pit mining for resources like gold, diamonds, copper, gemstones and precious metals can result in deforestation on a large scale depending on how far into the ground miners go. They use wildcat miners to clear forests that are said to hold resources and use the wood for building materials and fuel. After mining has occurred in an area it is unlikely that any vegetation will grow there again due to the contamination of the soil and waterways within the area that was mined and because there's such a high demand for technology, Coltan is being mined everywhere, which is affecting DC Congo greatly in terms of their forests. https://troythtran.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/the-environmental-impacts-of-coltan-mining-in-dr-congo-deforestation-and-endangered-wildlife/ , http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0808.htm