WHY SHOULD FORESTS BE SAVED?
Forests
are one of the natural resources which have played a critical role in ancient
civilization and remains a crucial part of modern ecosystems. In today's world,
forests have different functions, including providing food, medicine, and
shelter. Besides, forests are a vital part of the ecosystems acting as carbon
sink and protector of water sponge where it is estimated that more than 75% of
the usable water reserves are found in forests. According to GreenFacts (2019),
forests covered nearly 30% of the earth's landmass, which was slightly under 40
million km2. However in recent years, reports have emerged that the forest
cover has reduced dramatically and now if no action is taken to correct the
worrisome trend, planet earth might become a massive desert in the next few
centuries. For instance, according to Forest Stewardship Council (2018), 13
million ha of forest cover has been lost every year since the 2000s. According
to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), such a loss was “alarmingly
high” and could spell doom in terms of food sustainability. It is based on such
information that this paper wishes to address the question of why should
forests be saved?
In recent years, the debate around climate
change has become so heated that it has even found its way into the political
arena where it is being used as a manifesto item by many politicians. One of
the main concerns raised by environmental conservationists is the increasing
carbon emissions, which have an overall effect of depleting the ozone layer. With continued Ozone layer depletion, global
warming has become another problem leading to the melting of the polar ice and
consequently rising ocean levels. However, one of the significant ways that
this problem can be s solved is through saving and increasing the current
forest cover. According to CIFOR (2009), “trees play an essential role in
regulating the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by acting as carbon
sinks”. Trees through photosynthesis, absorb CO2 from the atmosphere
using sunlight as the source of energy and convert it to photosynthetic products
that are redistributed throughout the plant and which are later released into
the soil through decomposition of the falling leaves. It is through this process that trees release
Oxygen, which we breathe. Besides, trees also regulate the amount of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere by soil mineralization and respiration in what is
commonly referred to as the carbon cycle.
The
contribution of forests and trees in general in terms of CO2
regulation is also underscored in the 2015 Climate Agreement in Paris whose
purpose was to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere. According to FAO (2015),
forests absorbed nearly 2 billion tonnes of CO2 every year.
Therefore since deforestation leaves all this carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
it has been termed as among the significant causes of climate changes. Besides,
deforestation contributes more than 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions, ranking
it higher than all transport sector emissions combined. This was also confirmed in another report by
CIFOR in which a hectare of tropical rainforest was reported to store around
430 tonnes of carbon (CIFOR, 2009). Therefore, in attempting to reduce CO2
in the atmosphere, save the ozone layer, mitigate the environmental impact, and
avert adverse climate changes, there is a need to protect the forests.
Another
primary reason as to why forests should be saved is due to their economic
contributions. The financial contributions
of forests are immense, and it is hard to over stress them. Since the beginning of the 21st
century, nature-based tourism is estimated to have grown four-fold as compared
to the growth experienced by the whole tourism industry(FAO,2015). Currently,
this type of tourism accounts for roughly 20% of total global tourism. Besides
tourism, forests employ careers such as game rangers and conservationist
thereby contributing to the reduction of levels of unemployment in a country
(Pearce, 2001). Forests, through
controlled logging also provide the government with revenue through import
duties, tariffs, fees, and taxes. For instance, according to a 2017 UN report
on the economic impact of forests, India's import of wood products and wood has
surpassed US$1 billion in 2005. Similarly, China's exports of furniture to the
US increased to US$10.68 billion by 2007. Besides, forests contribute immensely
to the multi-billion shipbuilding industry, which employs thousands of people
and facilitate trade worth billions of dollars (UN, 2017). Therefore without
forests, all these economic benefits would soon, which makes it paramount to
have the forests conserved.
Increased human activities can have an overall
effect of altering land characteristics, which, as a result, impedes the rates
of water infiltration, reduces percolation and base flow of streams. According to Nowak, Wang, and Endreny (2007),
less sorption of in water in retention basins pollutes the quality of
subsurface water and surface runoff. The
result is the reduction in volumes of drinkable water, which may in effect lead to making water a scarce
resource and thus limit future development. Therefore forests and trees play an
essential role in such a scenario. They intercept raindrops through branch
surfaces and leaves, therefore, minimizing the volumes of water that will
runoff as well as increasing the time before the onset of peak flows(Nowak et
al., 2007). Forests also significantly reduce the rate of soil erosion by
minimizing the speed of runoff downhill.
Further, it is also noted that forest cover increases the ability and
capacity of soil to infiltrate water from rainfall, thereby reducing the volume
of water flowing overland. When forests
are located near towns, forests act as a buffer that reduces urban runoff as
well as the number of pollutants that are carried by the urban runoff water(
UNECE,2014). This has an overall effect on the quality of water in urban areas.
In the absence of forest cover, there would be
nothing like biodiversity. According to the UN-Habitat, forests serve as home
to millions of different species. Besides, some indigenous trees which take
ages to grow to maturity are found in forests.
For instance, Amazon forest is said to be home to thousands of species
which are not yet discovered. Therefore without forest cover, these species
would be displaced from their natural habitat leading to their extinction. It is hence essential to ensure continuity of
such species through conservation of forests.
Besides, deforestation is a threat to the very existence of human beings. According to the 2030 Agenda on
sustainable development goals, forests have a crucial role to play (UNSPF,
2017). One of the main SDG is the eradication of poverty through sustainable
use of forests. However, deforestation on the other hand, makes achieving such
goals impossible. Instead, it increases the rate of desertification, land degradation, and loss of
biodiversity. These adverse outcomes
plunge more people into poverty, raises mortality rate resulting in declining
human population. In the end, the human
population may end up being extinct in the long run. Therefore to mitigate
this, eventuality forests must be saved.
The
rate of reduced health incidences has increased mainly due to the increasing
urbanization, which has promoted a more
sedentary lifestyle and increased mental stress. Mental stress has been attributed to
increasingly virtual worlds and high technology. However, studies conducted in
recent years have shown that green and natural spaces have the potential to
enhance human health. According to
Karjalainen, Sarjala, and Raitio(2009), human physical and mental can be
promoted by the forest environment in several ways. First, they found that the
forests environment promote physical and psychological rehabilitation by
helping in the recovery of attentional fatigue as well as stress
reduction. It has also been argued that
the green forest environment helps an individual to establish identity both
personal and community. It is due to this realization that initiatives all
around the world, such as the British Green Gym program have been encouraging
people to exercise in green environments.
Besides promoting physical and psychological
health, forests are the single largest source of natural herbs and a reserve of
compounds that can be utilized both in nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. For
instance, trees extracts contain compounds that are bioactive, including
polyphenols, sterols, and carotenoids all which contain biological activities
including anticancer, antioxidant, and antiatherogenic ( Karjalainen,2009).
Besides, forests have always been a source of herbs which have been used by
humans for an extended period. To underscore the importance of natural herbs, a
2008 WHO report indicated that nearly 80% of the African and Asian countries' population used
herbs at least once in their lifetime.
The importance of herbal plants is also underscored by the fact that
more than 25% of modern pharmacopeia is derived from plants(Rahman, Rahman,
Islam& Reza, 2012). Therefore, since most of these plants are found in
forests, forests must be saved to
protect these plants for continued use and future generations.
In
conclusions, it is evident that forests play far more critical roles than we
understand. If forest cover was to be depleted instantly, though subject to
research, humans would not last more than a decade. Therefore, our work and
responsibility to conserve and save the diminishing forest cover is cut for
each one of us. Besides, there are no
proven advantages of reduced forest cover, and if there any, the disadvantages
of such a scenario far outweigh the benefits, and therefore forest must be
saved at all cost.
References
CIFOR,
(2009). Integrating climate change into forestry.1-48. Retrieved from https://www.cifor.org/fctoolbox/download/Topic-1.pdf.
FAO. (2015). ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND
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FAO. (2015). SOFO 2018 - The State of the
World's Forests 2018. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/state-of-forests/en/
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from www.fsc.org.
GreenFacts. (2019). Forests. Retrieved from https://www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/l-2/2-extent-deforestation.htm
Karjalainen, E., Sarjala, T., & Raitio, H.
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Pearce, D., (2001). The Economic Value of
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