Forests Depleting Essay, Research Paper

The discussions these days are why are the rain forests depleting? Well this

research will help change the opinions of many people. Some facts about rain

forests are, ?Tropical rain forests occupy about 7 percent of the earth?s

surface but harbor as much as 50 percent of the world?s plant and animal

species. Also about 57 percent of all rain forests remaining are in the tropics

in the Western Hemisphere: 30 percent are in Brazil. At the current rate of

deforestation, tropical rain forests could be wiped out in 177 years. Less than

5 percent of the world?s tropical rain forests are protected within national

parks and reserves (Steve Grant, 2)?. Rain forests are becoming very scarce

and should be taking into concern because depletion of rain forests is a

problem. One method of cutting down rain forests is slash-and-burn agriculture.

Grant defines slash-and-burn agriculture as ?Smallholders that are cutting

down four or five acres of forest and set it on fire. The resulting ash

fertilizes the soils, which are notoriously poor in the tropics (1)?. Grant

explains that now that there is only charred stumps left, a lot of light reaches

the ground and is oppressively hot (1). ?In the past, a logger might take only

a few trees per acre. While that would allow more light into the forest floor

and raise the risk of fire (Grant, 2)?. So when people decide to cut down

forests they are increasing the risk of fire. Rain forests have been burning up

lately. An analysis of satellite by the EDF indicates that burning of rainforest

land in Amazon increased 28% from 1996 to 1997 (Amazon rainforest, 1). Research

shows ?A total of 19,115 fires are reported from the NOAA-12 satellite images

in the sample in 1996, while 24,549 fires appear in the 1997 data over the

period (1)?. One reason for rampant burning is that Brazil?s environmental

agency has had no legal authority to enforce environmental law since 1989. A

bill in the Brazilian congress that would close the loophole passed the Senate

earlier this year, but has been blocked by special interests in the Lower House

(2). So of the reasons why the burning continues is because of the government

and the burning is increasing more and more because we need more land and crops.

Since the statistics show that rain forest are getting burned up, the government

and people need to start taking concern towards the rain forest. The point of

this paper was to persuade people as a whole to take rain forest into concern

and act on it. Some solutions to the problem are that the government should take

better responsibility and take control of the burning of the rain forest. Also

the people can help the government out by understanding the needs of our rain

forest.