"Unless we keep this planet healthy, everything else is for naught." - Victoria Principal
Deforestation is one of the biggest issues of the world today. The Amazon which is one of the treasures of earth, is being destroyed. Not only the amazon, the rain forests in Nigeria, Cambodia, and Indonesia are also disappearing. We people, cut the rain forests for our benefit and profits and from those benefits, we only consume and throw it away within 6 months.What do we truly gain from deforestation? We use the natural resources to make stuff. The following video tells us how the cycle of buying stuff, using, and throwing it away just makes the earth decay. When we throw away the stuff, it doesn't quite get reused or recycled. Many are just incinerated, and disposed. That act, harms the earth. Although rain forests provide us many resources, the continuing deforestation that we are causing, is harming the wild animals, polluting the environment, and stealing away all the natural resources left on Earth.
As we are burning away humungous areas of the rain forests, the animals’ habitats are destroyed, leaving the wild animals to wander around in where the humans live, and eventually get captured by the humans. These animals can be harmed or poisoned as they enter the urban area, and either get sent to the zoo or get killed. Many animals are getting endangered due to deforestation. For example, in South America, especially Brazil where there the Amazon is, the Scarlet Macaw, the Maned Three-Toed Sloth, the Golden-Bellied Capuchin monkey are getting endangered due to the deforestation. As these animals mostly live in trees, the more we cut down trees, the more animals will lose their habitat. In all continents, different animals are being endangered. In Asia, the panda, tiger, and the turtles are endangered. In America, the bald eagle, in Africa, the rhinoceros and the leopard, in the Artic regions, the polar bear and more! If any of these species that are getting endangered due to deforestation, then the food chain will break. If an animal were to disappear from the food chain, then the animals who are bounded to the extinct animal, will either get overpopulated or underpopulated and die out too. If more were to get extinct, then more animals will get inflicted by the others which will eventually destroy the ecosystem, making humans unable to live too. We have to protect the animals. And to prevent that, we need to reduce the amount of stuff we use, so that deforestation is decreased.
Followed by deforestation, comes pollution. Pollution is caused by the trash we throw away, the toxic substances that get released into the air, and by chopping trees down. For example, the Amazon is mostly cut down for cattle ranching, agriculture, and logging, as seen in the chart of the right. The more natural resources (like wood) we use, the more stuff is made, and that stuff, is eventually thrown away within six months. The toxic that are made within those "stuff" are incinerated. The toxic is soon released into the air as a gas, which causes the atmosphere to absorb it, and cause toxic rain. And as toxic rain falls down on earth, it leads to rivers, soil and later is consumed by humans, animals, and plants. That, kills the environment. The more we use natural resources, the more pollution is caused, and leads into a bigger mess. As the rivers carry the contaminated substances throughout the land, that water foes to the people who are poor, and depend on the river to drink and wash. This would poison the people, and cause their health to deteriorate, which gives difficulty for the organizations of UNMDG to help the poor. Pollution by deforestation leads into many difficulties, and should be prevented for the better future.
Lastly, the more natural resources we use by the deforestation of the rainforest, the sooner it will run out. We humans, use the natural resources, but don't return them back to the ecosystem. This is a big issue because if we run out, what would happen to us? To prevent those events from happening, scientists are finding ways to use other resources, other than the natural resources, to use later on. However, the nature won't always adjust to the standard where people keeping using things. If nature were to fall, then it would turn out like a dystopian society, where there are less resources to survive with, just like the movie, WALL-E, where humans had to leave Earth, because there was too much trash, and had less oxygen, due to the fact they cut all the trees down. This connects to the Knife of Never Letting Go, as the people also left Earth because it was too polluted to live in. The people set out for a "New World" where they could live in. These novels and movies are predicting what might happen in the future. To prevent from happening, we need to reduce, reuse, and recycle, to keep the Earth healthy as it is.
In a nutshell, deforestation is a dangerous factor for our future of Earth. It is destroying Earth in a very slow pace, but if that were to continue, our world would turn out like a desert of trash. Humans are hungry consumers. The more stuff is made from deforestation, the more we buy, and trash it. That cycle needs to broken, and we need to start a new cycle to conserve energy. Isn't that worth fighting for? The world we live in needs to be taken care of, or else, we might not be able to live in Earth. Our Earth, is also worth fighting for.
