Preservation of rainforests & maintaining ecobalance - Essay Example

In addition it is very sad to note that about 150 acres of rainforests are victims of fire every minute equating to 200,000 acres every day meaning annually 78 million acres of valuable rainforests are going up in smoke! The colossal loss due to deforestation of rainforests can be gauged from the statistics given below: Extinction of rare medicine men (called shamans) having knowledge of the herbs and plants of medicinal value in rainforests: for example in the Amazonian rainforest the population of Indians has dwindled and fallen to a mere 200,000 from ten million in five centuries.

Consequences of deforestation can be classified into local and global sectors. The immediate effects of deforestation are evident at local level and the effects at global level are evident in long term. The forest acts like a sponge by absorbing enormous amount of water during heavy rainfall and releasing at regular intervals, thus preventing floods and drought cycles. On deforestation the rainwater immediately drains off through streams into rivers, thus raising their water level and submerging villages, cities and agricultural fields downstream.

During dry season the areas downstream are prone to long droughts, preventing river navigation and interrupting industrial operations. Rainforests help raise the humidity levels through transpiration resulting into good rainfall. Deforestation results in decline of rainfall since less or no moisture is evapotranspired into the atmosphere. Globally the wind and ocean current patterns are altered due to deforestation of rainforests and the rainfall distribution is bound to become unstable (Source: Consequences of deforestation of Mongabay.com site). Deforestation also results into erosion of fertile soil, thus reducing the productivity and increasing the expenditure on fertilizers.

The washed off fertile soil gets accumulated on river bed thus raising water level and causing floods, the silt may also obstruct the hydroelectric projects located downstream (Source: Consequences of deforestation of Mongabay.com site). Deforestation results in reduction of oxygen levels increase in carbon dioxide and other gas levels in the atmosphere. This effect is called "greenhouse effect". The greenhouse effect causes a rise in temperature allover the world i.e., Global Warming and it has long term repercussions (Source: Consequences of deforestation of Mongabay.com site). The various species of living forms in a rainforest be it plants or animals have developed a complex symbiotic relationship for millions of years, when one species is removed from this complex system the whole system is severely effected.

In a symbiotic relationship both the participating species benefit mutually. Symbiotic relationship is a rule and not an exception in rainforests (Rainforest Ecology). Human being is solely responsible both direct and indirect deforestation by indulging in various activities such as slash-and-burn farming,