Despite some changes recently, in most parts of the country, free grazing still causes forest degradation and negatively impacts forest regeneration. When this happens, farmers pack up and move on to the next section of the rainforest, leaving their farmland behind for. Assessing the environmental, social, and economic impacts. These coupled with the impacts of climate change leads to economic destabilization and habitat destruction and loss. Box 28, fi 00014 university of helsinki, finland 2faculty of law, p. Over half of all terrestrial species live in rainforests, which are subject to the greatest deforestation pressures. Drivers of defforestation and forest degradation in ethiopia. 3 impact of each factor on deforestation and forest degradation 25.
Forest fire is a major cause of degradation of indias forests. A pantropical analysis of the impacts of forest degradation. The land use pattern therefore provides an important context for the understanding of land use change, opportunities and degradation. Socioeconomic importance, forest exploitation, environmental impacts, deforestation, degradation, dimako, east region, cameroon. Deforestation and forest degradation have real and tangible impacts on the lives of these vulnerable communities.
While statistical data on fire loss are weak, it is estimated that the proportion of forest areas prone to forest fires annually ranges from 33% in some states to over 90% in others. For example, 52 per cent of all land used for food production is moderately or severely impacted by the erosion of healthy soil. The cost of such changes is the loss of what people would have done without the interventions, such as produce and sell crops. Forest degradation is defined as the reduction in capacity of the forest which produces ecosystem services which includes carbon storage and wood products which results in anthropogenic and environmental changes. Where exactly new roads go also affects the rate of forest loss because the impacts of new roads vary over space.
Penny environmental and developmental consultantpractitioner, cape town, south africa keywords. Upland and inland deforestation and forest degradation coastal and mangrove deforestation and. Anthropogenic impacts on tropical forest biodiversity. It provides guidance on how to slow, halt and reverse forest degradation within a managers sphere of control and influence. However, being deteriorated by different drivers it is becoming a global agenda with deeprooted implications following the massive forest clearance and deterioration. The impacts of forest degradation on medicinal plant use and. Ethiopia is a mountainous country with a great topographic range from 110m below sea level at dalol depression to 4620m above sea level at mount ras dejen. Unfccc 2010 outcome of the work of the ad hoc working group on longterm cooperative action under the conventionpolicy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. Forest degradation and fragmentation forest degradation is different from deforestation. What are the impacts of forest degradation answers. Man has had a major impact on the loss and degradation of forests through indiscriminate exploitation of the forests. The impacts of forest degradation on medicinal plant use and implications for health care in eastern amazonia. The changes in area of forest by region and subregion are shown in table 1.
Forest degradation impacts on carbon stocks, tree density. Domestic development causes development often summarized as increasing income per capita may itself affect rates of deforestation. Desertification and land degradation are among the central problems for the sustainable development of the dryland ecosystem, especially in the case of the sudan figure 1. Causes and consequences article pdf available in european researcher 8182. Thus, the usefulness of different monitoring approaches varies. Pdf the impacts of forest degradation on medicinal plant. Continued degradation of the forests can destroy the entire forest cover and biodiversity, and it mainly.
There are various impacts of forest degradation ranging from biodiversity loss, increase in green house gases emission which leads to the green house effect, even soil nutrient loss and a wide. Penny encyclopedia of life support systems eolss population growth and increasing per capita demands for forest products and therefore forest exploitation, and the conversion of forested land for the purpose. To characterize land use in a systematic way allows evaluating the various aspects of land use change and degradation, particularly when information is related. Impacts of human resettlement on forests of ethiopia. This all leads to forest degradation, and without management also can lead to deforestation because degraded forest often is more vulnerable to clearing and disturbances, such as fire. The overall rrs across all the forest degradation types ranked as microbial c 240. The most significant effect of forest degradation is loss of habitat leading to species loss. The following points highlight the five main impacts of agriculture on environment. An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation. Biodiversity loss can occur during selective logging as well. Pdf effects of forest degradation on microbial communities.
An increasing livestock population combined with free grazing that leads to overgrazing in forest areas is the main driver of forest degradation especially degradation of the woodland vegetation. What is forest degradation and what are various causes of it. The primary contemporary drivers of tropical forest biodiversity loss include direct effects of human activities such as habitat destruction and fragmentation landuse change, invasive species and overexploitation, as well as indirect effects of human activities such as climate change millennium ecosystem assessment 2005. Forest degradation is the changes within the forest which negatively affect the structure or function of the stand or site, and thereby lower the capacity to supply products andor services. A pantropical analysis of the impacts of forest degradation and conversion on local temperature rebecca a. It involves a change process that negatively affects the characteristics of a forest e. The deforestation variable is binary 0 or 1, whereas the degradation variable cannot be, at the risk of oversimplification.
These definitions are based on a reduction in the production of. Causes, effects and control strategies 5 deforestation are maintained. Forest degradation results owing to decrease in tree cover, the biodiversity in the forests or the changes to a lower state of the forest structure. The impact of charcoal production on forest degradation. Forest degradation is a direct, humaninduced, longterm loss or reduction in forest carbon stocks and forest values not qualifying as deforestation gofcgold 2009. An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers. Basis for indicators of degradation degradation loss of expected goods and services from the forest good and services are forest products, including nonvalued services and products e. Difficulties include choosing appropriate reference states, timescales, thresholds, and forest values. Degradation can result in a decrease in tree cover, changes in their structure or a reduction in the number. Distribution of the forest cover of the countries of the congo basin. Degradation is when something is degraded, or made worse. Increased demand for agriculture commodities generates incentives to convert forests and grasslands to farm fields and pastures.
This research was conducted to diagnose the causes of deforestation and forest. Impacts of forest degradation on medicinal plant use and. Loss of biodiversity the most significant effect of forest degradation is loss of habitat leading to species loss. Drivers of defforestation and forest degradation in. Byker july 31, 2018 preliminary and incomplete please do not circulate abstract we investigate how environmental degradation at the very beginning of childs life impacts childhood health. Indicators, methods and proxies need to be carefully chosen, particularly for monitoring activities leading to forest degradation. The forest is still there, but with fewer trees, or less species of trees, plants or animals, or some of them affected by plagues. Glover2, olavi luukkanen1 1department of forest sciences, viikki tropical resources institute, p.
In this unique situation, environmental degradation is a specific instance of utilization or generation externalities reflected by uniqueness amongst private and social. We a characterize the nature of the forest degradation in himalayas, b analyze the impact of chronic disturbance at stand. It is comprised of countless species that create a dynamic and complex ecosystem and is among the most precious resources to humans. Causes and impacts of land degradation and desertification.
Threats to pacific island biodiversity and biodiversity conservation in the pacific islands randy thaman, pacific islands biogeography, university of the south pacific, fiji. Although forest degradation will reduce access to some forestbased medicinals, it will favor secondary growth species. Destruction of forests also effects the soil and water quality in the immediate area and can have an adverse effect on biodiversity over a range of connected ecosystems. Deforestation and forest degradation impact the lives of 1. While drought increases soil degradation, soil degradation, in turn, magnifies the impact of drought. Forest is one of the crucial resources that determine the livelihood, environmental stability, and sociocultural value of the dependent people. Naturebased solutions such as forest landscape restoration flr can reverse the effects of deforestation and degradation and regain the ecological, social, climatic and. Introduction since the creation of the earth, humans have always lived in harmony with the natural environment due to the fact that it was from there that his life depended entirely dindi, 2011. This does not involve a reduction of the forest area, but rather a quality decrease in its condition. In this article, we have used primary as well as secondary data to understand the scale of forest degradation. Forest degradation is the reduction of the capacity of a forest to provide goods and sociocultural and environmental services. This module is intended for forest and land managers, as well as for stakeholders in all sectors involved in joint efforts to reduce forest degradation. Deforestation and forest degradation in the congo basin. New roads in already developed areas raise deforestation less than.
Anthropogenic influences on tropical forest biodiversity. This occurs when trees are removed from a landscape, leading to increased food insecurity. The principal aim of this study was to explore the impacts of desertification, degradation and drought on both the natural resources. Recurring droughts and land degradation are closely linked. Causes and impacts of deforestation and forest degradation. Over half of the tropical forests worldwide have been destroyed since the 1960s, and every second. Forests are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet. Forest degradation is a global environmental issue, but its definition is problematic.
Naturebased solutions such as forest landscape restoration flr can reverse the effects of deforestation and degradation and regain the ecological, social, climatic and economic. If that threshold is not reached, the change is instead considered forest degradation. Forest degradation means any negative changes in a forest that damage its productivity. Degradation is used to mean the destruction or reduction in the quality of specific aspects of forests. The resulting sun exposure to the forest floor intensifies the existing fire. Chapter 6 land department of environmental affairs. The bigger cause of degradation is unsustainable logging, agriculture, spreading of species, fire, fuelwood gathering, and livestock grazing. The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more. Forest degradation impacts on carbon stocks, tree density and. In response to an increasingly degraded landscape, users may simply switch to these commonplace plants when substitutes existor, if economic conditions allow, purchase pharmaceuticals. Forest degradation is land degradation which 7 occurs in forest land. Forest loss, malaria, and child outcomes in nigeria julia berazneva and tanya s.
Unesco eolss sample chapters land use, land cover and soil sciences vol. Mangrove ecosystems are of great ecological and economic importance 1. Indeed some 31 countries do not even make the list because they have already removed most of their forests and even if that remain are seriously fragmented and degraded. Deforestation is the conversion of forest to nonforest land and can result in land 8 degradation. The partial removal of forest carbon stock often occurs at subpixel scale and is not detected by highresolution satellites. The concept of forest degradation tends to be addressed in broad terms, and existing definitions are difficult to apply in practice. The degradation of land in one form or the other is matter of serious concern endangering. The transition to agriculture from natural vegetation often. The socioeconomic importance of forest exploitation and. Forest degradation is a process in which the biological wealth of a forest area is permanently diminished by some factor or by a combination of factors.
Simply defining a threshold for tree cover is not enough, however. Assisted by the government, 12,305 households 56,715 people from eastern hararghe zone and. The soil only stays nutrient rich for so long, about two years11, after this time, the nutrients from the burned biomass are used up. The impacts of forest degradation on medicinal plant use and implications for health care in eastern amazonia patricia shanley and leda luz over the last three decades, forest degradation in the brazilian amazon has diminished the availability of some widely used medicinal plant species. Environmental degradation, to a large scale, is the result of market failure, namely the nonexistent or poorly functioning markets for environmental goods and services. Threats to pacific island biodiversity and biodiversity. What is forest degradation and what are various causes of. Desertification, a phenomenon referring to land degradation in arid, semiarid and dry subhumid regions as a result of climatic variations and human activities, is considered as one of the most severe environmental and socioeconomic problems of recent times. Impact of mangrove forests degradation on biodiversity and. Because of its topographic variation and location in the tropics, ethiopia has diverse climate. Deforestation and forest degradation deforestation and forest degradation are the biggest threats to forests worldwide.
Distribution of the causes of deforestation and forest degradation in different regions of the planet. Soil is the earths fragile skin that anchors all life on earth. These forests, at the landsea interface, provide food. When fire spreads to unintended areas, the protective forest canopy is destroyed. Degradation refers to damage or reduction in quality of certain features of the forests. We dispense with many such ambiguities by interpreting forest degradation through the frame of ecological resilience, and with reference to forest dynamics. Distribution of the forest cover by forest type for the countries of the congo basin. Deforestation, defined as the longterm or permanent conversion of land from forest use to other nonforest uses gofcgold 2009, represents an abrupt and rapid change in land cover.
Disappearing forests in malawi open computing facility. Upland and inland deforestation and forest degradation many forest ecosystems, indigenous and introduced trees, particularly on small islands, are degraded, endangered, scarce or in need of protection. What are causes and effects of environmental degradation. The effects of forest degradation on ecosystems sciencing.