The positive and negative impact of deforestation

Part 2/2

On the initial installment of this article, we talked about the positive impact of deforestation. Today, we will discuss the other side of the coin. And unfortunately, the disadvantages of deforestation far outweigh its benefits. Listed below are some of the negative impacts of Deforestation:
 

1.      Soil is purposely exposed to rain and heat. When forests are being cleared, vegetation which acts as soil cover is removed as well. The bare soil is exposed to extreme scenarios which are produced by the natural rainwater and the heat of the sun. With these natural alternating activities, the soil has a tendency to immediately compact. As rainwater flows through it, nutrients are washed out as well as other organic materials which make the soil fertile and rich. Further, regular cropping, grazing and tilling slowly results in degradation of the soil; making its quality inferior.

These activities are crucial concerns in areas where forest locations are much dry. Agricultural activities on top of deforestation can practically result in the desertification of majority of vast lands. Desertification is also a direct impact of the demand to the soil to product more because of increase in its population, thereby lessening to a serious degree of the lands occupying capacity.

2.      Non-suitability of deforested areas for conversion. A lot of the areas that have experienced deforestation are basically not suitable for long-term agricultural activities like farming and ranching. As soon as deprived of its forest cover, the lands immediately degrade in quality, thereby losing their arability and fertility.

The soil in a lot of deforested regions is similarly not suitable for maintaining annual crop products. A lot of the grassy communities are also not as productive as compared to more arable regions and ergo, unfit for cattle grazing and poultry raising.

3.      Flooding. Deforestation can bring watersheds that do not have the capacity to regulate and sustain flow of water from streams and rivers. Trees are immensely efficient in the process of absorbing water in volumes, maintaining the amount of watersheds in a normal level. The forest is also regarded as ca cover to prevent seepage and erosion. As soon as they are gone, big amount of water may result into flashfloods, a lot of which caused disasters in parts around the globe.

Once the topsoil which is fertile, is flooded into lower regions, a lot of coral reefs and coastal fisheries suffer sedimentation which is caused by the flooding. This may result in negative effects in the economic viability of several businesses and significant fatalities in the wildlife habitat.

4.      The eradication of indigenous communities and their ethnical way of living. When governments decide to undergo deforestation mainly to open its doors for civilized communities, access to forests’ natural resources by ethnical groups are basically taken for granted. To tell you the truth, ethnical groups are often ignored in political and economic decisions that mainly affect their lives. This encroachment makes their rights taken for granted as much as it takes away the natural resources that their forefathers have bestowed on them.

5.      The loss of significant amount of biodiversity. This is practically the most serious disadvantage and impact of deforestation. Simply put, it means the extinction and destruction of a lot of animal and plant species, a lot of whom remain unknown and whose benefits will be left undisclosed. Every year, as deforestation continues to emerge, a lot of the wilderness from which we avail of a lot of benefits and would have continued to benefit will forever be eradicated. With it are tons of chances in the form of wildlife that could supply us tons of medical and economic resources to issues we are currently facing.

We cannot deny the fact that deforestation has given us chances to enhance our lives; we have not mastered the perfect kind of responsibility that goes with having control over the earth’s resources. As an outcome, we and thousands of other species on earth suffer immensely from the consequences of our actions.

This article is too short to discuss a lot of issues relative to deforestation. Let us slowly unravel what this has to offer in our future articles.

 Source

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation

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The positive and negative impact of deforestation

Part 1/2 - Part two will be published next Monday.

Mother Earth, and every living creature that depends on its captivity – from the smallest living organism to the largest living sea creatures rest on a very crucial element which is balance. A sole, intense harmless disturbance that would hinder balance has different outcomes that are two-way. It can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. One of these elements is the so-called DEFORESTATION.

Forest, the lungs of the planet

What is Deforestation? Basically, deforestation has been a household name especially in a lot of developing countries. It has made a great impact to the development of civilization as we know more of it at this point in time. Unluckily, a lot of the ill effects of deforestation are caused by inappropriate agricultural and farm practices, greed, neglect and ignorance of government.

Why forests are essential to mankind? Aside from its natural beauty, forests are in-charge and accountable in sustaining and maintaining global ecosystem. To tell you the truth, a lot of the quality of life we are experiencing as of the moment, we owe it to the forests. It is also considered as the habitat of nearly more than half of all the organisms and creatures in this planet.

From the staple element, food to herbal medicines and other components of survival, forests supplies the human kind a plethora of gifts that give significant immeasurable amount to our way of life.

Now let us pay attention on the advantages of deforestation. It is basically dependent on the needs of the social community concern; deforestation has helped communities to be built. Forests are the key ingredients in building residential houses, factories, and buildings. Government has the capacity to construct roads to make transportation and trade faster and a lot convenient to people. This turn is the realization of the development of each community.

On the other hand, deforestation can also be regarded as the conversion of forest land to productive land destined for poultry and agricultural components. The outcome is an efficient and plentiful production of material and food, seemingly avoiding periods of needs and lack. On the economical side, deforestation has contributed a lot in supplying communities the chance to make positive changes in their way of living.  But, it is not advantages at all. There is a counterpart disadvantage of reforestation and the negative consequences of it will surely make a big impact in the world.

On the next article, we will tackle the negative consequences of deforestation and how the world reacts to rampant deforestation. What are the impact, isolated or not, of deforestation, not only to the way of living, but to humankind as a whole. You will be able to see in the next article that the disadvantages far outweigh its advantages. The effects are seriously scary.

It is one of Kaltimber missions to promote an eco-friendly and sustainable way of using wood materials to protect our forest.

Your beneficial friend the forest: Shinrin-Yoku

The Japanese practice of forest bathing is proven to lower heart rate and blood pressure, reduce stress hormone production (cortisol), boost the immune system, improve overall feelings of wellbeing, lowering anxiety and anger, increase of natural killers (specific cells fighting cancer), positivie regulation of heart rate, etc...

Forest bathing—basically just being in the presence of trees—became part of a national public health program in Japan in 1982 when the forestry ministry coined the phrase shinrin-yoku (meaning Forest bathing or Forest showering) and promoted topiary as therapy. Nature appreciation—picnicking en masse under the cherry blossoms, for example—is a national pastime in Japan, so forest bathing quickly took. The environment’s wisdom has long been evident to the culture.

Forest bathing works simply: Just be with trees. You can sit or meander, but the point is to relax rather than accomplish anything.

From 2004 to 2012, Japanese officials spent about $4 million dollars studying the physiological and psychological effects of forest bathing, designating 48 therapy trails based on the results. Qing Li, a professor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, measured the activity of human natural killer (NK) cells in the immune system before and after exposure to the woods. These cells provide rapid responses to viral-infected cells and respond to tumor formation, and are associated with immune system health and cancer prevention. In a 2009 study Li’s subjects showed significant increases in NK cell activity in the week after a forest visit, and positive effects lasted a month following each weekend in the woods.

This is due to various essential oils, generally called phytoncide, found in wood, plants, and some fruit and vegetables, which trees emit to protect themselves from germs and insects. Forest air doesn’t just feel fresher and better—inhaling phytoncide seems to actually improve immune system function.

Experiments on forest bathing conducted by the Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences in Japan’s Chiba University measured its physiological effects on 280 subjects in their early 20s. The team measured the subjects’ salivary cortisol (which increases with stress), blood pressure, pulse rate, and heart rate variability during a day in the city and compared those to the same biometrics taken during a day with a 30-minute forest visit. “Forest environments promote lower concentrations of cortisol, lower pulse rate, lower blood pressure, greater parasympathetic nerve activity, and lower sympathetic nerve activity than do city environments,” the study concluded.

In other words, being in nature made subjects, physiologically, less amped. The parasympathetic nerve system controls the body’s rest-and-digest system while the sympathetic nerve system governs fight-or-flight responses. Subjects were more rested and less inclined to stress after a forest bath.

Trees soothe the spirit too. A study on forest bathing’s psychological effects surveyed 498 healthy volunteers, twice in a forest and twice in control environments. The subjects showed significantly reduced hostility and depression scores, coupled with increased liveliness, after exposure to trees. “Accordingly,” the researchers wrote, “forest environments can be viewed as therapeutic landscapes.”

City dwellers can benefit from the effects of trees with just a visit to the park. Brief exposure to greenery in urban environments can relieve stress levels, and experts have recommended “doses of nature” as part of treatment of attention disorders in children. What all of this evidence suggests is we don’t seem to need a lot of exposure to gain from nature—but regular contact appears to improve our immune system function and our wellbeing.

Beneficial effects from a onetime exposure can last for up to 30 days. Time in 2018 to plan some forest trips!

Your beneficial friend the forest.

Many articles are available online regarding that subject. Le Point from November 2, 2017 offers a wide range of article in relation to forest intelligence and Forest bathing.

Forest to protect cities from earthquake

The deflected waves to protect a building can destroy the neighbor and, among the famous surface seismic waves known by seismologists  as Rayleigh waves, some have wave lengths large enough not to be affected by the already envisaged seismic invisibility systems. Fortunately, these problems seem to be able to be overcome using ... trees!

Experiments carried out in France with a small pine forest not far from the campus of the Université Joseph-Fourier in Grenoble, together with numerical simulations, confirm that the trees can behave as resonators rebroadcasting the waves of Rayleigh in a certain frequency band in response to the arrival of these of an earthquake. In the end, they are sent deep into the ground, even for large wavelengths. Oddly enough, the most effective protection is obtained with trees planted in a dense and random way. It improves again by covering a larger frequency band if the trees are arranged with decreasing heights.

Yet there is a problem: at the moment, the concept only works if the waves arrive from two directions only. But the researchers are confident. They'll blow up that lock.

Earthquake damaged road

Read it, plant it, enjoy it!

The Mainichi newspaper is one of the dailies most sold in Japan with its 5.5 million of prints sold per day. It is also a group that takes very seriously the issue on the protection of the environment. As a result, it seeks by all means to promote the ecological behavior, such as his newspaper which can be planted in a pot after reading.

 Paper that can give a beautiful flower, it's an idea that may seem to us original, but which is already in vogue in the Japan. With the Mainichi newspaper, one can plant it and have a flower! Simply put crumbs of the paper in Earth and moisten it.

These "magical" papers are made of recycled paper with a mix of seeds of flowers and herbs. These papers are part of the "Green Newspaper" initiative, which was initiated by the Japanese advertising agency, Dentsu. The idea has been so successful that the Japanese have adopted it. This, even though the country of the sun rising is known by its large consumer society.

 The goal of the "Green Newspaper" is not only ecological, but also to develop a new communication strategy with a product that respects the environment and that protects it from the most beautiful ways.

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Quoting Alex Ryan, Kaltimber Founder

“One of the reasons we deplete our resources so quickly is because we don’t design in a clever way. If we can put longevity into the design phase, I believe there will always be a market for reusing, reclaiming and designing around the material’s original state. I know that is not always possible, but it is what I am trying to promote.”

— Alex Ryan, Kaltimber Founder