With only 7.3 million mi2 of primary forests remaining worldwide, 23,000 mi2 of these forests continue to be cut on an annual basis. Discuss three major environmental concerns with this continual loss of primary forest land

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Firstly, biologists estimate that forests contain over 75% of the world's biodiversity in the form of microbes, plants, and animals. In addition to its intrinsic value, this biodiversity provides humans with an array of foodstuffs, clothing, pharmaceuticals, and building materials. The world's forests also provide an immense array of ecosystem services, especially pertaining to the normal functioning of the hydrologic cycle and providing an extensive carbon storage potential in the face of global warming. The roots of trees absorb large amounts of water, which eventually evaporates from leaves into the atmosphere, recondensing as rain. When forests are removed over a large area, rainfall in that area often declines. The volume and flow rate of rainfall runoff is also dramatically reduced by the presence of plants and leaf litter. Finally, forests store large amounts of carbon that they take in during the process of photosynthesis, storing this carbon in the form of carbohydrates in their tissues. Deforestation reduces total global forest carbon storage each year, and it is estimated that this CO2 increase accounts for about 15-20% of the anthropogenic carbon emissions that are currently contributing to global climate change.