Читать реферат по английскому: "Rainforest Essay Research Paper IntroductionAs destruction of" Страница 1

(Назад) (Cкачать работу)

Rainforest Essay, Research Paper

Introduction

As destruction of the rainforest continues, man slowly paves the inevitable path to a clear end. It has been known that the rainforest is an essential provider for the balance of the mother earth and that it acts as a key for life as we know it. Yet, the world still decides to quietly watch the disappearance. In fact, most people realize what exactly is taking place. But however, instead of trying to aid in the termination of this disaster. They place this into the back of their ignorant little minds thinking that it will not directly effect them. Every day the removal continues, it actually occurs extremely fast and at a pace of 80 acres per minute. That means at 80 acres per minute with 60 minutes per hour and 24 hours a day, there is a loss of approximately 115,000 acres a day. This is an exorbitant amount forest loss in one day meaning that at this pace hastened by the roadrunner ethics, that the forest will not have a place in the environment for very long. The fact is that now is the time to voice your opinion before and act it is too late.

Reasons

There are many reasons as to why a country would allow their environment to be desecrated. Most of this rests within a money factor, being that the rainforest’s provide an abundance of marketable resources. Logging companies are known as the most outstanding. In fact many corporations have realized that the rainforest supplies an abundance of resources, however, there are four that are the most prominent. These reasons are, farming, ranching, logging and business related attributes, and overpopulation.

Farmers are the agents of more Rainforest destruction than any other factor. Farmers in rainforest countries are often poor and can’t afford to buy land that has already been cultivated. Instead of purchasing lands, the country of residence often allows the farmers to obtain forestland for relatively low cost and sometimes free. The reason for this being that the more agricultural products the county provides to export, the more profit that the country can make. With this being the case these farmers will purchase these lands. After a purchase is made the farmer then in-turn can do as pleases. Farmers then destroy all trees upon the land in an effort to provide ideal cultivation areas to produce large cash crop products. Although they will use this land for generating food products, the main concern lies within the fact that soil in which they will be using is extremely low in nutrients. This meaning that every 2 to 3 years of usage the farmer will then be forced to expunge the used land followed by the obtaining of new lands. This in-turn becomes a continual cycle where the farmers become parasites of the land, where day by day they will suck every ounce of life from the land until it is dry.

Ranching is another cause for destruction of rainforests. Ranchers obtain land in the same method as farmers do, but however, they are not forced to move from land to land as the farmers do. Ranchers clear large areas of rainforest to become pastures for their cattle. This land does not cost them very much and often more then not the ranchers are able to collect this land for free, enabling them to sell cattle at relatively low prices. Cattle ranching for beef exports are perhaps one of the largest culprits for the decimation of rainforest’s. Government figures attributes 38% of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between the years 1966 and 1975 to large-scale cattle ranching, 31% to agriculture and 27% to highway construction. Because this method is very profitable, ranchers continue to clear rainforest land. Throughout the course of the 1980?s, about 16.9 million hectares of tropical rainforest were cut down from cattle ranchers.

The third major reason lies within large-scale business. There are virtually billions of dollars that are invested in products that are produced form the rainforest. Mining for valuable resources plays a significant role. Since 1987, the year gold was discovered, as many as 40,000 gold miners have poured into the area of the Yanomami Indian lands. Mercury, which is used in the mining process, poisons the rivers, which in-turn affects downstream habitats and forest life. Not only do they affect the vegetation and wild life but this causes direct forest loss due to the clearing of land to establish mining projects. Roads will then be constructed through previously inaccessible land, opening up the forest. When they are finished the result is permanent, severe water, air and land pollution is the final product.

Logging, which is included, accounts for significant tree loss per year. Commercial logging companies cut down mature trees that have been selected for their unusual and exotic timber. When these trees are selected large areas of rainforest are destroyed in order to remove only a few logs. The heavy machinery, which is used to penetrate the forests and build roads, causes extensive damage and produces large tracks where they have been. These tracks and the clearings left behind by loggers are sites of extreme soil disturbance, which begins to erode in heavy rain. This in-turn causes siltation of the forests, rivers and streams, making re-vegetation impossible for the next 2 to 3 hundred years. Siltation causes the water to become choked with mud and all life that depends on that clean water eventually suffocates. Most of this timber is then exported to the rich international markets of other foreign countries that will not be directly affected for the time being. There, it is sold for hundreds of times the price that is paid to the indigenous people whose forests has been plundered. After leaving these markets, the tropical timber will be used in construction of doors, window frames, crates, coffins, furniture, plywood sheets, chopsticks, household utensils and other ridiculous items.

Похожие работы