The world is made of several great things along with splendid creatures, the journey across the globe, observing the immense beauty and its structure, not harm, and spreading its diverse vision are the primary purposes of living. Imagine a vast forest area covering various trees, plants, and surroundings with different species of animals and birds, and later on, all the surrounding becomes empty, without forest, water, flora & fauna, and much more the cycle of the planet Earth will be disturbed.
The Amazon forest has vast region that covers across eight rapidly growing developing countries i.e., Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and some parts of French Guiana coving across 1.4 billion acres of dense tropical forest including 4,100 miles of zig-zag rivers and contains 2.6 million square miles in the Amazon basin, covering 40% of the South America continent.
Today, the Amazon river is the most voluminous river across the planet. The trees under the river pump a massive amount of water vapor into the atmosphere every day. The forest area is considered the” Amazon Rainforest” because of dense forest and heavy rainfall. Perhaps 30% of the world’s animals and birds are found in the Amazon forest with diverse species.
More than 30 million people living in the Amazon river basin, including various ethnic groups, purely depend on nature for agriculture, clothing, and traditional medicines. And most of the urban people rely on Amazon forest natural ingredients to maintain their livelihood.
Since 1970 Amazon forest is facing severe threats. As a result, 20% (700,000 square km) of areas had been lost, and every year deforestation levels increase by 200,000 square km per year. Due to this human settlement, they are growing population using modern methods of living causing deforestation and forest fires to clear the land for their use to uplift the global economy.
Vast quantities of commodities were produced by- cattle beef and leather, soy cultivation, oil and gas, timber, and minerals exported to various parts of the country.
Here a question arises
Though the Amazon forest is helping others by producing necessary commodities so, what is the cause of deforestation of trees?
The Brazilian Government estimate the Amazon Rain forest witnessed deforestation of 829 square km recently and considered the highest in the last five years.
Threats to Deforestation
Urbanization: Nowadays, tropical deforestation accounts for about 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the emissions of 600 million cars.
Urban growth in Brazil generally increases in two forms. First, the rural migrants to cities adopt city-based lifestyles, which tend them to use more resources coming from the forest. Ironically, even urban growth to deforestation is that cities are often expanding into areas of farmland and natural habitat. Every week, cities were growing with increasing population and projected to expand their civilization to a more extent.
Forest Fires: Deforestation causes a significant impact on forest fires. Because of cutting trees in large amount make global changes in the climate which resulted in high temperatures in the tropical region and reduces rainfall across large extents and causing drought and forest fires like offensive threats.
Amazon Rainforest is considered as “lungs of the world” because of producing 20% of the world’s oxygen but nearly 40,000 fires burning the whole forest and almost 1,330 sq. miles of the rainforest burned due to human-made disasters, set by loggers and cattle ranchers who generally use the “ slash and burn” method to clear the land.
Industrial conversion: Increased government incentives in the form of loans and infrastructure spending, including roads and dams depleting the forest resources.
Scaled-up private sector finance due to growing interest in “emerging markets” and rising national wealth significantly impacted the forest.
Increasing demand for necessary commodities like beef, soy, oil, and gas, etc.
Wood extraction and illegal logging: Increasing demand for forest products has brought some financial benefits for poor people living near the forest, causing logging. Apart from strict rules initiated by the Brazilian government, people collectively extract wood and do illegal logging for commercial agriculture and clear the land.
Logging in Amazon is controlled by strict proof and licensing, which allows timber, soya to be harvested only in particular areas, and illegal logging remains widespread in the parts of Brazil and Peru.
Not only illegal logging leaves a mark of the destruction of trees but also creating gasping wholes where ancient trees once stood and strips the economic livelihood.
We know deforestation is a real problem in the world today, apart from damaging the planet, deforestation also brings social issues. The big picture is probably the contribution of deforestation to harsh climate change and the active rise of social equality.
What can cities do?
In my view, the first and foremost option is to increase the efficiency of economies that are delivering as resources input, for which the impact of higher consumption could be sharply reduced food waste and lowering meat consumption.
Reducing meat consumption can help to reduce fossil-fuel-based livestock systems to extend up to more diverse.
We are worried as citizens, questioning How to stop the harsh deforestation, and although we are thinking of avoiding paper and wood-based products, this is not correct. No government can implement strict environmental rules to prevent them because these things are necessary for living.
We should depend on a broad perspective to reduce deforestation:
- Fighting with illegal logging and limiting logging in old-growth forests.
- Protecting protected forested areas by creating laws and policies that ensure forests are kept protected and restored and betting on land practices such as wildlife corridors of Amazon.
- Reforming the environmental agreements, and people need to start value the products obtained through deforestation, and creating better incentives for the use of sustainable forestry certifications logo on a wood or wood-based products such as FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).
- Educating local communities and tourists about the need to protect tropical forests and develop and enroll in ecotourism activities.
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