how are all parts of forest dependent on other
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Answer:
Fuelwood
Because so much of their fuel has traditionally been in the form of fuelwood, it can be expected that declines in wood resources could result in fuel shortages for many rural households. Fuel shortages can have a variety of harmful effects. For example, they may influence the amount of food supplied or cooked. If there is less fuel or time for cooking, consumption of uncooked and reheated food may increase. This may cause a serious rise in disease incidence as few uncooked foods can be properly digested and cooking is necessary to remove parasites. A decrease in the number of meals provided may have a particularly damaging effect on child nutrition, as children may be unable to consume enough of the often over-starchy staple food in one meal.
However, many other factors are associated with changes in dietary customs which should not be attributed to fuel shortages alone - in many situations the lack of food is so great that fuel shortages play only a minor role in determining diets. Nor is it the case that decreasing availability of wood necessarily leads to shortages of fuel. It is also not clear that planting trees specifically selected to produce fuelwood rather than a mix of products is necessarily an appropriate response where fuel shortages do exist.¹
More exhaustive study of a wide range of situations in which the fuelwood supply situation had been identified as worsening have repeatedly - but not always - disclosed that domestic fuel shortages were much less than had been understood initially. The reasons for this include the following:
· much of the wood used for fuel may come from dead wood, or trees and shrubs outside the forest, so that the drain on the forest growing stock is limited;
· other biomass fuels, such as crop residues and dried dung, may account for a sizeable part of overall use;
· these non-forest and non-wood resources may be renewing themselves, or being renewed, at rates able to sustain current levels of use.
In addition, people respond spontaneously to decreases in fuelwood supplies through a number of adjustments that enable them to maintain their cooked food situation. For those with land, the adjustment process may include using more of the woody material grown on their own land and making changes in cropping patterns to include species, such as pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) which provide woody residues which can be used for fuel. For others, one response is the often cited one of collecting fuelwood from resources further afield. Others include more careful and economical use of available supplies and shifts to other readily available biomass fuels such as crop residues and dried dung.
This should not be interpreted as an argument that fuel shortages do not exist. They do, often on a widespread scale, and with the pernicious results outlined at the beginning of this section. However, equally the responses that are forced on people sometimes add to their hardship and burdens, forcing them to spend more time tending fuelwood crops at long distances from home. It is necessary to understand more accurately the nature of the problem, where there is one, if we are to define appropriate interventions.
The issue can be less one of physical scarcity than of labour shortages, constraints on access or culturally determined patterns of behaviour (Dewees 1989). Fuelwood gathering may be becoming a greater burden because women have more to do, as is widely reflected in the fluctuations in fuelwood gathering which coincide with seasonal cycles in agricultural or other pressures on their time. This, of course, makes it no less a burden or problem, but changes the framework within which to seek a solution - and reduces the likelihood that planting species only for fuelwood production will prove to be the most appropriate solution.
Similarly, the impact of the use as fuel of crop residues and dried dung on the maintenance of soil fertility has proved to be insufficiently documented. Evidence that significant quantities are diverted from agricultural to fuel use is at best inconclusive - much if not most of what is burned seems to be surplus to such use (Barnard and Kristofferson 1985). Indeed, recent work indicates that the working of crop residues into the soil is seldom practised in Africa, because the returns on the labour involved are low and the use of dung for that purpose has been greatly exaggerated (McIntire et al 1988). While it may be true that some of these biomass materials be lower quality fuels than wood - because they are more difficult and unpleasant to use, for example, producing more smoke - this may be offset in decision making at least in part by their being more convenient to use, for example, readily and abundantly available in the busy season.
The plants and animals are dependent on each other for oxygen-carbon dioxide balance, food and other factors. The biotic and abiotic factors of the forest ecosystem are independent and essential. The green plants produce food.In this way every component of forest is inter-dependent on each other.