Environmental pollution: Deforestation

Deforestation

Deforestation, clearance, clearcutting or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land which is then converted to a non-forest use.

^{Deforestation} can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests.^About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests.

Satellite image of deforestation in progress in eastern Bolivia. Worldwide, 10% of wilderness areaswere lost between 1990 and 2015.^[1]

Tropical deforestation in 1750-2004 (net loss)

Dry seasons, exacerbated by climate change, and the use of slash-and-burn methods for clearing tropical forest for agriculture, livestock, logging, and mining are causing wildfires, deforestating the Amazon rainforest. (MODIS satellite image of 2020 Brazil rainforest wildfires)

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nationsdefines deforestation as the conversion of forest to other land uses (regardless of whether it is human-induced). “Deforestation” and “forest area net change” are not the same: the latter is the sum of all forest losses (deforestation) and all forest gains (forest expansion) in a given period. Net change, therefore, can be positive or negative, depending on whether gains exceed losses, or vice versa.

Deforestation environmental Pollution video..

Environmental effects ::-

Types of environmental effects ::-

Atmospheric
Hydrological
Soil
Biodiversity

Health effects ::-

Public health contexts
Hiv/aids
Malaria
Corona virus diseases 2019
General overview

The report presents the causes of the emerging diseases, large part of them environmental:

Cause	Part of emerging diseases caused by it (%)
Land-use change	31%
Agricultural industrychanges	15%
International travel and commerce	13%
Medical industry changes	11%
War and Famine	7%
Climate and Weather	6%
Human demography and behavior	4%
Breakdown of public health	3%
Bushmeat	3%
Food industry change	2%
Other	4%^[107]

On page 23 of the report are presented some of the latest emerging diseases and the definite environmental cause of them:

Disease	Environmental cause
Rabies	Forest activities in South America
Bat accosiated viruses	Deforestation and Agricultural expansion
Lyme disease	Forest fragmentation in North America
Nipah virus infection	Pig farming and intensification of fruit production in Malaysia
Japanese encephalitis virus	irrigated rice production and pig farming in Southeast Asia
Ebola virus disease	Forest losses
Avian influenza	Intensive Poultry farming
SARS virus	contact with civet cats either in the wild or in live animal markets