Reforestation Is Usually To Regenerate Forests Environmental Sciences Essay

If looked at from a long term point of view, reforestation is economically beneficial. One of the most obvious benefits is the supply of lumber and wood products in the world. Almost everyone uses wood in some way every day, and selling lumber creates a great deal of income. Secondary economic benefits from reforestation include job creation in forest management and increased property taxes on reforested land. Trees, when they decompose, enrich and add nutrients to the soil. This increases soil fertility and helps cash crops grow, which is a huge benefit for nations that rely on their primary sector.

Against

If looked at from a short term view, reforestation is very expensive and would be hard to carry out in poorer nations, where there is hardly any money to fulfill basic needs, let alone extra money to waste on schemes like reforestation. There is less land available for agricultural growth and human activities.

Environmental Factor

For

Trees provide a natural habitat for other life forms, as a home and a food source. By the process of photosynthesis, trees capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to reduce quantities of this greenhouse gas and mitigating the effects of climate change. Moreover, by controlling the flow of surface water and reducing the runoff of soil, trees can also help mitigate the effects of extreme weather events. This reduces the occurrence of floods and mudslides, particularly in areas susceptible to disasters. Trees can also reduce the risk of droughts by retaining water in the local environment and cooling local temperatures by shading the soil.

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Against

Planting more trees means there will be less land for human activities. Planting artificial trees may mean a drastic change of habitats for specific sets of animals and plants. It takes a very long time for the trees to grow and produce something useful.

Positive Impacts

Reforestation is the reestablishment or expansion of a forest which was previously destroyed or degraded. The primary goal of reforestation is usually to regenerate forests, with the aim of restoring the environmental and economic benefits they provide, but reforestation activities can also provide a wealth of social benefits as well. Woodland provides ecosystems for wildlife, resources for humans and even modifies the climate. Replanting trees can help reduce erosion and nutrient depletion, keeping areas where rainforests grow fertile and reducing the likelihood of floods. Reforestation projects may also ensure the conservation of habitats for animals and plants. Some types of fauna may be useful for food, to improve medical science or have other potential advantages for society across the globe. Benefits of reforestation projects for those living in deforested areas include increasing the availability of clean drinking water, food, fuel and construction materials, as well as offering employment, according to Eden Reforestation Projects.

 Negative Impacts- Reforestation projects can be expensive, and a lot of work, time and money would be needed if the world were to plant enough trees to successfully combat their depletion. Eden Reforestation Projects highlights figures from the World Bank released in 2002, which stated that 15 million hectares of woodland needs to be planted every year at a cost of 20 cents per tree or more after inflation. It is very time consuming. Planting trees and waiting for them to actually grow may take years together. Reforestation policies may be hard to implement in some areas of the world. 

Reforestation as a Solution-

Through photosynthesis, trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere, thus reforestation can play an important role in offsetting carbon emissions.  The United Nations’ IPCC estimates reforestation could remove the carbon equivalent to about 10 percent to 20 percent of projected fossil fuel emissions by 2050.  Reforestation is the restocking of existing forests and woodlands which have been depleted, with native tree stock.

 The term reforestation is like afforestation, the process of restoring and recreating areas of woodlands or forest that once existed but were deforested or otherwise removed or destroyed at some point in the past. The resulting forest can provide both ecosystem and resource benefits and has the potential to become a major carbon sink. The concept of forests as carbon sinks has drawn attention around reforestation as a possible tool in the fight against global climate change. Because trees draw CO2 from the atmosphere in the process of photosynthesis, they can potentially remove this excess greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and help fight global warming.

Problems

The main effect is an increasing global average temperature. This causes a variety of secondary effects, namely, changes in patterns of precipitation, rising sea levels, altered patterns of agriculture, increased extreme weather events, the expansion of the range of tropical diseases, the opening of new trade routes.

 As northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing plague and disease with them. Indeed some scientists believe that in some countries, thanks to global warming, malaria had not been fully eradicated. Global warming is already strengthening heat waves. Nearly every part of the Causes

Carbon overload is a result of human activities. When humans burn fossil fuels, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, where it traps heat. One of the first things scientists learned is that there are several greenhouse gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety of ways. Most come from the combustion of fossil fuels in factories and electricity production. The gas responsible for the most warming is carbon dioxide (CO2). Other contributors include methane released from landfills and agriculture, nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for industrial processes, and the loss of forests that would otherwise store CO2. 

The atmospheric concentrations of these  greenhouse gases  have significantly increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution. This is mainly due to human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, land use change, and agriculture. For instance, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has been growing faster in the last ten years than it has been since the beginning of continuous measurements around 1960.

United States will have significantly more of 100o late this century. The water will become warmer and there will be more hurricanes. The polar icecaps are melting at a high rate. The rising sea levels will cause more floods. The trees will dry up and cause wildfires. Desertification will take place. There will be increased volcanic activity. Species of exotic animals will get wiped out. All our food and water supplies will be diminished.