Deforesting is Killing You Slowly

Seven or eight trees needed to produce the oxygen needed to survive for one person.

Imagine.

At the current rate of deforestation, the future for us – oxygen breathers – is not so sparkly. (source). World’s forests are being destroyed at a rate ranging in between 3,5 million hectares/year to a minimum of 100,000 hectares/year. (source). The percentage loss of world’s forests is at an average of 2% to 4% every year. (source). This, as you can understand, is a very dangerous picture even for the next 1-2 decades.

Its not only not being able to breathe – trees have the natural ability to absorb harmful greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and renew it into breathable oxygen. Without the help from the trees, the atmosphere has no way to process these gasses. They become trapped in the atmosphere and do more damage to our already fragile ozone layer.

Certain species of plants and animals thrive in the damp darkness of the forests and jungles. As the trees are cut away and the sunlight allowed in, their environment completely changes to one that is not conducive with life for them. Further, as the trees are thinned out, many animals are forced to relocate to nearby environments they do not know how to survive in.

Losing their homes means they will branch out into neighborhoods and yards where there exposure to humans can have dire effects on their survival. Alternately, some animals may become defensive and attack humans for getting too close to them. The animals can also turn violent when they are hungry because all the food sources they knew are now gone.

The harvesting of trees is going to continue so long as there is money to be made from it and precious land to gain from it. As past experience shows, even making tree harvesting illegal is not going to cut back on the number of trees we lose each year. The only solution we have to this problem is to replant the trees that were harvested. Even though it may take several life times for the trees to grow to their full size, replanting of the harvested trees is the only way we can insure that life will return to normal at some point for both us and the flora and fauna that make these forested areas their homes.