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Deforestation on Our Planet

Introduction

Deforestation is the deliberate, natural, or accidental clearing, degradation, or removal of trees. Several people consider ecological concerns an advanced issue: humankind's destruction of nature and environments because of late populace development and expanding utilization. This is valid for certain issues, for example, environmental change. In any case, it's not the situation for deforestation. People have been chopping down trees for centuries. There are two reasons that we cut down backwoods; Forest assets: we need the assets that they give – the wood to fuel, building materials, or paper; Land-we need to utilize the land they involve for something different – farmland to develop crops; field to raise domesticated animals or land to fabricate streets and urban areas.

Analysis of Article 1

The article, Reducing tropical deforestation, by Frances Seymour and Nancy L. Harris in 2019 compares and contrasts the interventions needed to reduce deforestation across the world. The article compares and contrasts the level of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Indonesia, and the Congo Basin. According to the authors, cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The expansion of commercial soy production in the Brazilian Amazon drove deforestation in the 1990s (Seymour & Harris 756). The conversion of the Brazilian pasture land to soy production caused in-direct land use, which has negatively resulted in droughts in Colombia, Peru, and Paraguay. On the other hand, deforestation in Africa's Congo Basin has been at a reduced rate compared to the rate of deforestation in the Amazon forest. As opposed to the Brazilian Amazon, deforestation in the Congo forest has been driven by very different social, political, and economic circumstances. The rate of deforestation in the Congo Basin is driven by small-scale commercials farers. The farmers are clearing forests to feed residents of the nearby cities and towns while at the same time feeding themselves (Seymour & Harris, 2019). As opposed to the Brazilian Amazon and African's Congo Basin, Indonesia's deforestation is driven by the complex interactions between pulpwood plantations and selective logging and conversion to industrial oil palm. More than half of Indonesia's deforestation was caused by the expansion of industrial plantations (Seymour & Harris 756).

Seymour and Harris (2019) highlighted some similarities in the cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Indonesia, and the Congo Basin. The three regions are facing deforestation because of agricultural activities. In the Brazilian Amazon, deforestation is a result of the conversion of pasture land into soy production. The Brazilian Amazon experienced a conversion of forest land to agro-industrial crops, including soybeans. A similar case is in Africa's Congo Basin, where small-scale farmers are clearing land for commercial and subsistence production. Similarly, Indonesia's deforestation is a result of expanding the industrial plantations. The authors assert that between 2014 and 2016, small-scale farmers in Indonesia drove more than one-quarter of all the deforestation. Deforestation is majorly caused by agricultural production, and I quote, "Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, deforestation for smallholder agriculture is accelerating" (Seymour & Harris 756).

Analysis of Article 2

The article, Deforestation 'stressing animals out', scientists warn, is written by Harry Cockburn in 2021 to explain how humans create hotspots for zoonotic diseases and destroy habitats.  The author compares and contrasts how different ecosystems have negatively been affected by human activities and their relationships with the highest diversity of organisms on the planet. The author argues that South America's Atlantic Forest is under more stress than any other ecosystems. The Atlantic Forest is stretching along Brazil's Atlantic coastline and into Paraguay and Argentina. The Atlantic Forest is the most diverse ecosystem on the planet, second after Amazon, but only a fraction of the original forest remains. The Atlantic Forest covered about 463,000 square miles, which is larger than Nevada, Washington, Oregon, and California. However, part of the forest has been destroyed to make way for urban areas and farmland. The forest remains vulnerable to logging and agricultural expansion, especially soy production.  The article affirms that organisms in the Atlantic Forest, a deforested area, would show higher stress levels than animals in the more pristine forests. However, countries like Paraguay are currently showing an accelerated rate of change in the natural landscape (Cockburn, 2021).

The similarity in the article is how deforestation in different ecosystems is causing harm to the large diversity of organisms on the planet. Cockburn (2021) states that...