It's not that hard to tell that humans are the
number one source of this problem.
Deforestation happens because humans want more space and nice
looking homes.
There's two type of deforestation, burning and taking down the trees for precious wood for our homes.
The soil in most tropical rainforests is very poor
in nutrients because of its age and the effects of the harsh
environment.
Any nutrients that are there are used up very quickly because the
plant life absorbs it immediately.
In temperate forests, plants stop growing in the winter months
allowing the soil to gather large amount of nutrients.
But in tropical rainforests,the plants grow year round. Leaving
little nutrients in the soil.
The part of the soil with all the nutrients is called the
topsoil. In temperate forests, the topsoil can be one to ten feet
deep.
In tropical rainforests the topsoil's only a few inches.
(Stick with me... I'm getting to a good point.)
When we burn the tropical
rainforests, the nutrients that were in the trees go back into
the ground.
After all the burning is over with, crops will be able to grow in
the soil.
Here is an example of rainforest farming:
• The
forest around the farm has been cleared so farm equipment could
be used easily.
• The soil was treated with expensive chemical fertilizers
which often are not properly absorbed into the soil.
• Farmers weed the farm with machetes, spreading the seeds
of the weeds throughout the farm.
• The field becomes overgrown with weeds so the farmers burn
the crops or forest again and repeat the process.
By reburning the soil the farmers can remove all the nutrients from the soil within a few years, making it useless.
By burning the
soil over and over again we leave the soil without any nutrients
so if the forest attempted to
grow back again it wouldn't work because the plants had no food
to eat.
Using wood from the trees in the
rainforest is another way of deforestation. Stores all over the
world use
that kind of food for tables, desks, floors, and any other things
we use wood for. Some stores, like
Pier One Imports uses those kinds of woods for their furnishings.
To stop that
kind of deforestation people have set up tree farms. They grow
the trees in the rainforest for that specific point, and that
point only. Just because some companies do that doesn't mean
others don't.
(I don't know of any. If I did I'd put the name up.)
It's the safer way to save our
rainforests.
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