Forest degradation is the reduction of forest quality. This has devastating results: soil erosion and destabilization of hydrographic basins that can cause droughts and floods. Tropical forests degradation also results in biodiversity reduction (since forests play an important part in Carbon Dioxide removal), deforestation results too in the increase of the Greenhouse problem.
In undeveloped countries, deforestation main cause is raw materials exploration, particularly the wood itself, because these countries have few alternatives to the use of natural resources to develop their economies.
Large scale deforestation contributes for CO2 emissions (about 1o to 30% per year). This is one of the main GHG (greenhouse gases) involved on the planet’s global warming. On the other hand, growing forests remove CO2 from the atmosphere putting it on trees and soil. For example, vast forest areas from Siberia (that cover an area almost as big as USA) contain almost half of CO2 relatively to the Amazon forest.
Posted by : João Malaquias
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