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In other words, what do people lose out on with the removal of a given habitat? A country may increase its food supply by converting forest land to row-crop agriculture, but the value of the same land may be much larger when it can supply natural resources or services such as clean water, timber, ecotourism, or flood regulation and drought control.
According to Global Assessment of Land Degradation and Improvement (GLADA) a quarter of land area around the globe can now be marked as degraded. Land degradation is supposed to influence lives of 1.5 billion people and 15 billion tons of fertile soil is lost every year due to anthropogenic activities and climate change. [29]
Sustainable Development Goal 15 (SDG 15 or Global Goal 15) is about "Life on land".One of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015, the official wording is: "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss". [1]
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. [1] Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. [2]
The United Nations estimate that about 30% of land is degraded worldwide, and about 3.2 billion people reside in these degrading areas, giving a high rate of environmental pollution. [2] Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity, leads to biodiversity loss, and can reduce food security as well as water security.
Environmental disasters show how the impact of humans' alteration of the land has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences. [3] These disasters have included deaths of wildlife, humans and plants, or severe disruption of human life or health, possibly requiring migration . [ 4 ]
Radioactive Plutonium-244 has a half-life of 80.8 million years, which indicates the time duration required for half of a given sample to decay, though very little plutonium-244 is produced in the nuclear fuel cycle and lower half-life materials have lower activity thus giving off less dangerous radiation.
Ecocide can threaten a people's cultural and physical existence, and several studies have shown that ecocide has genocidal dimensions. [2] Destruction of the natural environment can result in cultural genocide by preventing people from following their traditional way of life. [2] This is especially true for Indigenous people. [4]