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Deforestation is defined as the conversion of forest to other land uses (regardless of whether it is human-induced). [14] Deforestation and forest area net change are not the same: the latter is the sum of all forest losses (deforestation) and all forest gains (forest expansion) in a given period. Net change, therefore, can be positive or ...
Deforestation causes many threats to wildlife as it not only causes habitat destruction for the many animals that survive in forests, as more than 80% of the world's species live in forests but also leads to further climate change. [8] Deforestation is a main concern in the tropical forests of the world.
Tropical deforestation: In most cases of tropical deforestation, three to four underlying causes are driving two to three proximate causes. [19] This means that a universal policy for controlling tropical deforestation would not be able to address the unique combination of proximate and underlying causes of deforestation in each country. [19]
Deforestation in Europe. France is the most deforested country in Europe, with only 15% of the native vegetation remaining. Deforestation in Bolivia, 2016. Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment , causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. [2]
Deforestation occurs when humans remove trees from a forested area by cutting or burning, either to harvest timber or to make way for farming. Most deforestation today occurs in tropical forests. The vast majority of this deforestation is because of the production of four commodities: wood, beef, soy, and palm oil. [15]
Lacanja burn shows deforestation. Human population growth results in changes in land use, which can cause natural habitats to become fragmented, altered, or destroyed. [5] Large mammals are often more vulnerable to extinction than smaller animals because they require larger home ranges and thus are more prone to suffer the effects of deforestation.
Land use change, especially in the form of deforestation, is the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities, after the burning of fossil fuels. [4] [5] Greenhouse gases are emitted from deforestation during the burning of forest biomass and decomposition of remaining plant material and soil carbon.
This degradation makes the forest less valuable and may lead to deforestation. Forest degradation is a type of the more general issue of land degradation. Deforestation and forest degradation continue to take place at alarming rates, which contributes significantly to the ongoing loss of biodiversity. [2]