Importance of forests and wildlife?? (2 3rd of page)
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Forest products are a vital part of our daily lives in more ways than we can imagine. Forests provide us with shelter, livelihoods, water, food and fuel security. All these activities directly or indirectly involve forests. Some are easy to figure out - fruits, paper and wood from trees, and so on. Others are less obvious, such as by-products that go into everyday items like medicines, cosmetics and detergents. Looking at it beyond our narrow, human – not to mention urban – perspective, forests provide habitats to diverse animal species. They are home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, and they also form the source of livelihood for many different human settlements, including 60 million indigenous people. In addition, 300 million people live in forests, including 60 million indigenous people. Yet, we are losing them. Between 1990 and 2015, the world lost some 129 million ha of forest, an area the size of South Africa. When we take away the forest, it is not just the trees that go. The entire ecosystem begins to fall apart, with dire consequences for all of us.
They provide ecosystem services that are critical to human welfare. These include:
Absorbing harmful greenhouse gasses that produce climate change. In tropical forests alone, a quarter of a trillion tons of carbon is stored in above and below ground biomass
Providing clean water for drinking, bathing, and other household needs
Protecting watersheds and reducing or slowing the amount of erosion and chemicals that reach waterways
Providing food and medicine
Serving as a buffer in natural disasters like flood and rainfalls
Providing habitat to more than half of the world’s land-based species
The importance of forests cannot be underestimated. We depend on forests for our survival, from the air we breathe to the wood we use. Besides providing habitats for animals and livelihoods for humans, forests also offer watershed protection, prevent soil erosion and mitigate climate change.
Forests resourses serves as a source of fishing ,hunting animals ,fruits from pants, to the local people. They got fodder for their cattle, firewood etc. Different spcies and verite of ploants are avelable, some of which are having medicinal properties and are acting as potencial source of morden drugs
Ecological importance. Wildlife helps in maintaining the eco-logical balance of nature. Killing of carnivores leads to an increase in the number of herbivores which in turn affect the forest vegetation, thus due to lack of food in the forest they come out from the forest to agriculture land and destroy our crops.