Question

Deforestation is responsible for natural disasters? Justify your answer?
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Answer 1

Explanation:

What Is Deforestation?

Deforestation refers to the decrease in forest areas across the world that are lost for other uses such as agricultural croplands, urbanization, or mining activities. Greatly accelerated by human activities since 1960, deforestation has been negatively affecting natural ecosystems, biodiversity, and the climate. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the annual rate of deforestation to be around 1.3 million km2 per decade.

The most known consequence of deforestation is its threat to biodiversity. In fact, forests represent some of the most veritable hubs of biodiversity. From mammals to birds, insects, amphibians or plants, the forest is home to many rare and fragile species.

80% of the Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests.

By destroying the forests, human activities are putting entire ecosystems in danger, creating natural imbalances, and putting Life at threat. The natural world is complex, interconnected, and made of thousands of inter-dependencies and among other functions, trees provide shade and colder temperatures for animals and smaller trees or vegetation which may not survive with the heat of direct sunlight. Besides, trees also feeding animals with their fruits while providing them with food and shelter they need to survive.

Deforestation also has a very strong contribution to climate change. Why? Let’s remember trees absorb and store CO2 throughout their lives. If we speak about tropical forests, they hold more than 210 gigatons of carbon, according to WWF. And what’s worrying is that the destruction of these trees has two big negative side-effects.

Firstly, taking down trees means they’ll release back into the atmosphere the CO2 they were keeping. Secondly, fewer trees available means reducing the planet’s overall ability to capture and store CO2. Both these effects negatively contribute to the greenhouse effect and to climate change. As a matter of fact, while food and agriculture account for 24% of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation is estimated to be responsible for 10-15% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions