Deforestation Is Anthropogenic and This Should Relate to Climate Change - Essay Example

DEFORESTATION IS ANTHROPOGENIC AND THIS SHOULD RELATE TO CLIMATE CHANGE By Ellaine Loveless SP: METR112 GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE Jeffrey Mirocha San Jose State University May 22, 2017 Deforestation is anthropogenic and this should relate to climate change Abstract: Given that the world’s population is growing fast, the need for space has become a major area of concern. The increasing need for land for industrial, agricultural, and most significantly urban needs to sustain the cities and the increasing populations has resulted in deforestation. In simple terms, deforestation could be described as clearing as well as felling of tree plantations or forest cover with the aim of accommodating the urban, industrial or agricultural use. These expansions have some implications as part of increased greenhouse gas release. Thus, the loss of forest has changes in the function of ecosystem. This paper has examined how deforestation and land use in Amazon tropical forest has resulted in loss of biodiversity and climate change impacts. The objective of this paper is to gain information and understanding regarding the effects of humans on the earth’s ecosystem, and climate. The Mitigation and adaptation solutions recommended include; adoption of social media tools to dissimilate information regarding environment conservation and espousal of zero deforestation’ policies by companies. Introduction: Deforestation could be considered as removing forests resulting in numerous imbalances environmentally and ecologically. The long-term and immediate effects inflicted by deforestation are what make it alarming. Relatively, human activities and land use, resulting in desertification and turning certain regions of forests to become more and more dry, reduces its forms of water as well as vegetation and wildlife, a significant biological, global environmental, and ecological problem. The rapid population growth has resulted in high forest exploitation in of the tropical forests. People are moving from the urban areas and establishing new villages in these forests to facilitate the accommodation of the growing population. Deforestation has led to destruction of habitat and reduction of forest species; therefore, leading to loss of biodiversity. This matter had raised a global concern due to the loss of biodiversity and climate change impacts on Amazon tropical forest. This aim of this study is to enquire answers from the South America, Amazon tropical forest environmental conditions. Does deforestation and land use in Amazon tropical forest contribute to loss of biodiversity and climate change impacts? Deforestation as it will be demonstrated in this essay is the second largest anthropogenic source of green house gases to the environment. Anthropogenic have an effect to human, earth, and climate. Deforestation is attributed to land-use risks and population growth; thus, resulting in loss of tropical biodiversity. Land-Use Risks The growth in human population has enhanced the anthropological impact on climate and weather. People have started damaging the environment by clearing forests, domesticating animals, constructing big urban complexes, and planting crops (Boroneant, 2009). Human activities have led to the release of considerable amount of aerosol particles and gases which have consequently altered the atmosphere’s structure and composition (Boroneant, 2009). Emission of residuals, smoke, and gases from deforestation, the agricultural practices like charcoal burning, from urban centers, industrial complexes, as well as intense utilization of fertilizers have resulted in contamination of waters and atmosphere. Overgrazing and deforestation have resulted in soil erosion; thus, generating substantial alterations in the surface albedo changing the moisture and radiation balances close to the surface and ultimately resulting in desertification. Basically, when the environment is modified physically and chemically because of human-related activities, significant changes across the globe are expected to become visible. In Nobre et al. (2016) study, they observed that for close to five decades, the Amazon’s economic integration process has continually been anchored in the intensive utilization of non-renewable and renewable natural resources, that has consequently led to considerable basin-wide environmental changes. In Amazonia, the rural development swiftly pushed the agricultural border line, leading to significant change of land-cover. Even so, agriculture in the Amazon has remained unsustainable and unproductive. Similarly, Nobre et al. (2016) posit that the continued deforestation and biodiversity loss would result in irreversible changes which pose high risks to the tropical forest. Many studies as cited by Nobre et al. (2016) have established that Amazon could have two ‘tipping points’, deforestation that exceeds 40 percent of the total forest area or an increase in temperature by 4 °C. Arguably, most part of the eastern and southern Amazon could experience large-scale ‘savannization’ if people continue transgressing. Over the last 60 years the region around Amazon have warmed by approximately 1°C and the total deforestation is currently about 20 percent of the total forested area (Nobre et al., 2016). Although deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has reduced by almost 80 percent in the last 10 years, a lot must be dome to allow for sustainable development model for the Amazon’s future. Still, deforestation of Amazonian tropical forests has increased tremendously with the aim of opening areas for agricultural purposes; thus, leading to irreversible changes to ecosystems as well as biodiversity. In addition, the climate change brings forth more risks to the forests’ stability. The ongoing debate on regional development has concentrated on efforts to reconcile the maximization of conservation with traditional agriculture intensification. Although Brazil Amazon deforestation has reduced, it must be halted in other countries like Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. Bearing in mind that deforestation has already consumed 100 million hectares of the Amazon tropical forests and another similar portion is degrading. Generally, the south-eastern and southern portions are the Amazon’s driest regions that present climate pattern that is same as that of savannah. As mentioned by Nobre et al. (2016), ‘Arc of Deforestation’ region is currently facing major anthropogenic change and could be indicating equilibrium state change, owing to the commonness of the dry type of vegetation. The observed nonexistence of the considerable lasting trend in the discharge of Amazon River demonstrates the challenges of establishing clear anthropogenic and long-term climate change effects on precipitation. Population Growth The findings the long trend effects on climate shift support the need for reducing the landscape fragmentation effects by activities such as zoning development; thus, facilitating the protection of huge portions of the remaining tropical forest in every biogeographic zone. As pointed out by Phillips et al. (2006), the clearance pace of mature forests vary, but land-use has been stabilized because of reduced economic as well as politic incentive for deforestation and improved identification of immigrant and native communities’ territories as well as zoning decisions which allow for extraction and ecotourism over extensive clearance. Global climate change and anthropogenic impacts, according to Popradit et al. (2015), are the main issues on forest ecosystems conservation in all countries across the globe. The rapid growth of population has led to high forest exploitation within the tropics, especially in the developing countries. People moving from the urban areas are establishing new villages in the tropical forests so as to accommodate the increasing population. Between the year 2000 and 2010, the Colombian Amazon, the Peruvian Amazon, and the Bolivian Amazon are experiencing high levels of deforestation whereas Brazilian Amazon deforestation is plummeting. According to Song et al. (2015), since road accessibility is normally associated closely with deforestation, there is high chances that the ‘arc of deforestation’ could spread out from Brazil to the most carbon-rich, most bio-diverse, yet less protected rainforests in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia after interoceanic highway was competed recently. Loss of Tropical Biodiversity Although it comes from various anthropogenic drivers, extreme drought and deforestation events are damaging the Amazon forest analogously: both can selectively increase mortality, generate degraded areas where the humid forest’s equilibrium state could be disrupted. Deforested areas could influence the climate of a region and could also amplify the deforestation impact through increasing the tree mortality further than the deforestation edges’ limits. According to Morris (2010), tropical forests has in the last century suffered from incomparable rates of change given that they are destroyed or degraded by human-related activities. Almost 50% of the tropical forests which existed at the start of 20th century have already disappeared and deforestation was at peak between 1980s and 1990s. Morris (2010) further posits that the loss of the tropical forest biodiversity in the contemporary world is mainly driven by human activities’ direct effects like habitat fragmentation and destruction, over-exploitation and invasive species. On the other hand, the indirect effects associated with the human activities like climate change has also led to loss of biodiversity. Although the effects of such threats are different across the major tropical forests, the main drivers could bring forth secondary effects such as changed disturbance dynamics. Deforestation is one of the major anthropogenic drivers that have led to the loss of tropical biodiversity. As pointed out by Morris (2010), clearance of forests results in destruction of habitat and normally leads to reduction of forest species diversity as well as abundance. Aside from destroying the environment, deforestation normally fragments the remaining forest; thus, the remaining parts of the forest are exceedingly small for a number of species to continue surviving. In consequence, this lead to the long decay process in residual diversity from the habitat that remains. The change of the vegetation cover, particularly in terms of deforestation is happening as human activities’ direct effect within the regions around the Amazon. Originally, Amazon forest was roughly 6.2 million square kilometers but as of 2001 it had been reduced by 13% to roughly 5.4 million square kilometers (Betts et al., 2008). The initiatives to expand infrastructure and improve agricultural practices could by 2050 reduce the forest to approximately 3.2 million square kilometers. Furthermore, the global climate change could as well result in alterations in the cover of Amazonian vegetation, particularly if the precipitation reductions happen. Betts et al. (2008) emphasizes that the relationship between regional precipitation patterns’ changes and global average temperatures warming is highly unclear, but numerous climate models indicate that global warming would result in particular warming patterns in the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of the tropical east Pacific as well as North Atlantic. In consequence, atmospheric circulation is changed such that a reduction of precipitation happens across part or the entire Amazonia. According to Barlow et al. (2016), the initiatives for Amazonian conservation have to address deforestation and forest disturbance. For instance, the Amazonian landowners are mandated by the Forest Code, Brazil’s centerpiece environmental legislation to maintain the primary forest cover by 80 percent. Barlow et al. (2016) argues that although the compliance level could be realized, the landscapes’ primary forests could merely retain between 46% and 61% of their main conservation value; therefore, there is high likelihood that many species of high functional and conservation importance could be lost. Mitigation and adaptation solutions that can help reduce anthropogenic, emission of GHGs, and deforestation include adoption of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate to friends, family and other users the value of environment conservation and planting trees. If companies are able to destroy the world’s forests, they also have power to save them. Companies should introduce ‘zero deforestation’ policies which that would compel the suppliers to produce commodities such as paper or timber in manner that does not lead to deforestation. More importantly, the customers should ensure that forest-derived products that they purchase are made from 100% post-consumer content materials. Conclusion In conclusion, this piece has demonstrated the factors that contribute to deforestation in Amazon and the possible effects of deforestation. As mentioned in the essay, deforestation is anthropogenic; it is attributed to land-use risks as well as population growth. Besides that, deforestation results in the loss of tropical biodiversity. deforestation have resulted in soil erosion; thus, generating substantial alterations in the surface albedo changing the moisture and radiation balances close to the surface and ultimately resulting in desertification. A number of predictions indicate that the world’s rainforests such as Amazon would be completely destroyed if deforestation is allowed to continue at the present pace. There are numerous other factors which could result in deforestation, which are part anthropogenic and part natural such as land desertification. It happens because of land abuse that makes it unfit for trees growth. References Barlow, J. et al., 2016. Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation. Nature, vol. 535, pp.144–47. Betts, R., Sanderson, M. & Woodward, S., 2008. Effects of large-scale Amazon forest degradation on climate and air quality through fluxes of carbon dioxide, water, energy, mineral dust and isoprene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, vol. 363, pp.1873–80. Boroneant, C.E., 2009. Anthropogenic Climate Influences. In Yotova, A. Climate Change, Human Systems, and Policy. Oxford: EOLSS Publications. pp.89-135. Morris, R.J., 2010. Anthropogenic impacts on tropical forest biodiversity: a network structure and ecosystem functioning perspective. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, vol. 365, pp.3709–18. Nobre, C.A. et al., 2016. Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon and. PNAS, vol. 113, no. 39, pp.10759–68. Phillips, O.L., Rose, S., Mendoza, A.M. & Percy Núñez Vargas, 2006. Resilience of Southwestern Amazon Forests to Anthropogenic Edge Effects. Conservation Biology, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 1698–1710. Popradit, A. et al., 2015. Anthropogenic effects on a tropical forest according to the distance from human settlements. Scientific Reports, vol. 5, pp.1-10. Song, X.-P. et al., 2015. Annual Carbon Emissions from Deforestation in the Amazon Basin between 2000 and 2010. PLOS ONE, vol. 1, pp.1-21. Read More