Deforestation In Central AmericaLarge swaths of the Central American rainforest are being cut down, with appalling repercussions. Logging for paper production, power, and building, leaves sections of the rainforest barren. Forests are cleared for agricultural uses, and cattle ranching. Fires in these cleared areas often rage out of control, destroying large portions of the rainforest. To get an idea of the amount of rainforest land that is lost, an acre and a half of tropical rainforest is cut down every second. (Ko, 2009) Pollution created by unsustainable human consumption of fossil fuels, and production of products that are not biodegradable, have crippling effects on the plant and animal life. Acid rain, created from pollutants in the troposphere, causes root decay in plants vital to the trophic level in rainforests. Because of the pollution, many animals have begun to consume plastic products that destroy their bodies from the inside and cause slow deaths from this industrial poison. Changing the biotic and abiotic elements of the rainforest, such as removing abiotic trees, and introducing new fabricated materials such as plastic is hazardous to the rainforest. The organisms that call the Central American rainforest home are used to the specific conditions of their habitat, and slight changes result in major consequences. As population grows, consumption of these natural resources will likely increase, exacerbating many of these issues. (Mackay, 2009) The picture of the cattle was found at physics.org; no photographer was listed. |
SlideshowCentral American Countries
The picture of the children was found on the NASA website here. No photographer was listed. The title is "Slash and Burn Children." The other photos found at Minnesota State University website here; no photographer was listed |
Mining
The Central American rainforest is brimming with fossil fuels, attracting mining excavations that deforest and introduce deadly poisons into the ecosystem. Room must be made within the rainforest before mining facilities can be built, another contributor to deforestation. Byproducts of mining in Central America include mercury and selenium. Selenium is the same element that was released by the J.R. Simplot Company's mining in northern Idaho, and this release led to deformities in many fish and killed numerous other animals occupying higher trophic levels, including many bald eagles. These changes happened through bio magnification, which is the process of increasing concentrations of a certain compounds through the journey from the bottom to the top of the food chain. The abiotic mercury and selenium released by mining in the Central American rainforest has had similar crippling effects on the food web, killing and deforming countless species. ("Rainforest threats," 2012) The mining operation picture was found on the WWF site here; it was photographed by Mark Edwards.
ImplicationsThe rainforest cannot support the level of consumption that is occurring today, and the loss of these rainforest will have great repercussions for us. In the near future, the carrying capacity of the rainforest will be reached, as human numbers and human consumption increase. As a result of this, climate change will accelerate, human necessities will be lost, and native tribes will die out, their homes destroyed.
The rainforest supplies 28% of earth's oxygen because of the huge number of photosynthetic plants, but less and less oxygen is created each year as a result of deforestation. These plants not only contribute oxygen, but remove large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, inhibiting climate change. Without these vital resources, climate change will become an even more troubling issue. In the process of deforestation, more greenhouse gases are created by the burning of fossil fuels to power machinery and transport vehicles. One of the main reasons deforestation occurs is to make room for cattle ranching. Cattle are infamous for their production of methane, a greenhouse gas that worsens climate change. In destroying the rainforests, we harm ourselves as well. With less and less rainforest, the production of important pharmaceuticals, many vital to our health, will disappear. With so many untested plants, many useful medicines could exist in the rainforest's depths. We may never know what we've lost. Along with the forest, our hopes for curing cancer, the common cold, and autism could vanish. The vibrant culture of people indigenous to the rainforest fill literature and myth, but without the rainforest, these cultures will also be lost, and stories may become the only place where they exist. (Ko, 2009) |
Kayapo indigenous people native to Central and South America
Photo from the national geographic website; photographed by Martin Schoeller.
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