• Deforestation

• Causes of deforestation:
• Timber is needed in MEDCs for products ranging from luxury furniture to
paper, or as a source of energy.
• Lumber (planks and boards).
Clear land for:
• Farming;
• Roads and settlements (logging tends to be selective as only a few species
create timber, however building roads for transporting logs is the most
damaging process.)
• Rock and mineral extraction.
• Impacts of deforestation:
• Habitat loss: biodiversity is lost when habitats are lost.
o Tropical rainforests are centers of great biodiversity, so loss of habitat
here is serious.
o Huge volume of trees acts as massive carbon stores that’s also home
for rare species which may be useful to us.
• Soil erosion and desertification:
o Forests reduce the impact of heavy rainfall on the ground, reducing soil
erosion.
o Tree roots bind the soil in place and the layer of fallen leaves and
branches protect the soil.
o Overtime, after deforestation, the area that once supported luxuriant
growth may become a desert, because of desertification.
• Climate change:
• Changes caused in the levels of various greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.
• CO2 and methane are rising and so are atmospheric temperatures.
• Greenhouse gas: gas that stops energy in the form of heat from being lost
from the atmosphere.
• Rise in CO2: due to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industries.
• If the rate of trees photosynthesising and respiring were equal, removal of
trees would have no effect.
• However, permanent removal of trees leads to large quantities of CO2 when
burnt or decomposed. Moreover, the machinery of burning fossil fuels
releases more CO2.
• Loss of biodiversity and genetic depletion

• Managing forests
• Carbon sinks: a vegetated area where the intake of CO2 from the
atmosphere in photosynthesis exceeds its output from respiration, so the net
amount of carbon is from the atmosphere into plants.
• Carbon store: a mature vegetated area where the intake of CO2 from the
atmosphere by photosynthesis equals its output from respiration, so the
mature plants store carbon.
• Role in water cycle: forests add water to the atmosphere during
transpiration, leading to formation of clouds, eventually releasing it by
precipitation.
• During deforestation, this process is reduced and local droughts are caused in
the area.
• Forests generate moisture in the atmosphere that can affect rainfall around
the world.
Prevention of soil erosion:
• By intercepting rain, forests reduce heavy rainfall on the forest floor.
• Debris such as tree leaves on the floor of the forest slows run-off.
• Roots of trees hold soil in place.
• Forests on the coast reduce erosion by absorbing energy from storms.
• Ecotourism: responsible travel to a natural area that promotes conservation
of the environment.
• Visitors travel with the main aim of appreciating its natural beauty.
• Ecotourism is both a reason to manage forests sustainably and a method by
which this can be achieved.
• It may be mainly economic in focus, with success measured by income, or
focused on sustainability, with success measured by a limit on numbers of
visitors.
• Sustainable harvesting of wild plant and animal species
• Many plants have medicinal properties because of the secondary metabolites
they produce.
• Secondary metabolites: organic compounds produced by bacteria, fungi, or
plants which are not directly involved in the normal growth, development, or
reproduction of the organism.
• Wild plants are preferred source as cultivated varieties only produce small or
none of the chemicals to be used. Management plan to control harvesting of
wild-grown medicinal plants:
• Assessing the abundance of the plant.
• Investigate species’ growth rate, reproductive biology and impact of
harvesting.
• Assess the yield that can be sustained by the wild population.
• Details of how the harvesting should be monitored.
• Sustainable forestry:
• Selective logging: removal of only mature trees of species that are valuable.
Other species and immature trees of value species are left, allowing the forest
to repair overtime.
• Non-valued trees still provide habitat for many species and immature valued
trees can be used years later.
• Agroforestry: land management system in which crops are grown around
trees.
• Trees enrich the soil when the leaves fall, provide food for animals, firewood
for people, and sometimes medicine.
• Tree roots bind soil together, and in some cases, x nitrogen, further enriching
the soil.
• Farmers obtain food and milk from the farm, and their animals enrich the soil
with manure.
• Alley cropping: planting rows of trees at wide spacings with a companion
crop grown in the alleyways between the rows.
• Trees are pruned and the prunings are used to improve the soil and provide
minerals to the crop. (if the tree is a legume, these minerals would include
nitrates)
• Mineral recycling and the suppression of weeds by the trees are combined
with cropping on the same land, these thereby allow the long-term survival of
farmland.
• National parks: an area of land protected by the government to preserve
entire ecosystems e.g. flora, fauna and landscape.
• Laws that ban/limit activities such as hunting, logging and collection of wild
flowers are implemented.
• Enforcement requires regular inspection and threat of hefty fines or
imprisonment for breaking the law. Extensive facilities for tourists are
provided, that includes a system of roadways, carparks and natural trails.
• An entry fee charged is used for conservation work.
• A guidebook/leaflet is provided that includes information on the dos and
don’ts, and the importance of the conservation of wild nature.
• The largest national park in the world is the Northeast Greenland National
park, covering 972001km2.
• Wildlife and ecological reserves: the practice of protecting wild plant and
animal species and their habitat that plays an important role in balancing the
ecosystems and different natural processes e.g., rainfall, fertility of the soil,
etc., thus also meeting the needs of people.
• Extractive reserves: an area of land, generally state- owned where access
and use rights, including natural resource extraction, are allocated to local
groups or communities.
• Wildlife corridor: a link of wildlife habitat, generally native vegetation, which
joins two or more larger areas of similar wildlife habitat.

• Corridors are critical for the maintenance of ecological processes including

• Seed banks: stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity when it’s not possible
to protect the area where the endangered plant lives.
• Wild plants carry genes that could be used in crop plants to confer resistance
to pests and diseases;
• Seeds occupy lesser space than plants, thus more species can be held;
• Collecting small samples of seeds is unlikely to damage the wild population as
most plants produce large number of seeds;
• Seeds are dormant and need minimal care, thus easier to store than living
plants.
• Role of zoos and captive breeding:
• Provide education about the illegal trade in animals and products, and the
need to maintain biodiversity;
• Involved in scientific research on the control of diseases, animal behavior and
techniques to improve breeding success;
• Captive-breeding programmes increase species numbers, thus reducing the
risk of extinction;
• Aim to release captive-bred animals into the wild when habitats have been
restored;
• Such programmes try maintaining genetic biodiversity of a species, as
interbreeding leads to a reduction in diversity and therefore reduces
adaptability when the species is placed back in the wild.
• Ways to reduce inbreeding:
• Organisms aren’t allowed to breed repeatedly with the same partner;
A variety of partners for an organism can be achieved through in-vitro
fertilisation and inter-zoo swapping of individuals;
• Use a database (studbook) to record breeding history of individuals in
captivity.
• Sustainable tourism and ecotourism: management of tourism in a
sustainable way to prevent damage to habitat and provide what people want.
• Key to successful sustainable ecotourism is realising that the growth of the
tourist industry depends on maintaining the environment.
• Measures are taken to safeguard wildlife and the resources are used
sustainably.