DEFINITION OF DEFORESTATION

What is deforestation? The green definition of deforestation is the destruction of a forest and changing the use of the land.

Many people are concerned about the fact that there is no official or common definition of deforestation. For instance, should it also be used to describe forests where the nature of the trees have changed, such as replacing slow growing indigenous trees with fast growing woods, meaning that the precious eco-system of the forest is destroyed?

Deforestation is the conversion of forested areas to non-forested land, for uses such as: pasture, urban use, logging purposes, and can result in arid land and wastelands. The removal or destruction of significant areas of forest cover has resulted in an altered environment with reduced biodiversity. In many countries, deforestation is ongoing and is shaping climate and geography. Deforestation results from removal of trees without sufficient reforestation, and results in declines in habitat and biodiversity, wood for fuel and industrial use, and quality of life. Forests disappear naturally as a result of broad climate change, fire, hurricanes or other disturbances, however most deforestation in the past 40,000 years has been anthropogenic. Human induced deforestation may be accidental such as in the case of forests in Europe adversely affected by acid rain.[1] Improperly applied logging, fuelwood collection, fire management or grazing can also lead to unintentional deforestation.[2] However, most anthropogenic deforestation is deliberate.

The term deforestation is used to describe the process of removing the trees in forests and woodland and converting the land to other use.

Since ancient times, man has been adapting the environment to meet the growing needs of civilizations. From the cutting down of the first trees for fire, through to the clearing of woodlands to settlers to build their homesteads, trees have long been at the mercy of man. In many parts of the world huge areas of woodlands and forests have been cleared over the centuries to both provide wood for essential purposes such as fuel, ships and building, and also to free the land for other use.

Over recent years, however, we have become more aware of the wider issues of deforestation and the harm that it causes our planet. Just because this is something we have been doing for centuries does not mean that it is right, or that we have the right to continue. Likewise, we cannot judge history by contemporary standards, and while we now know the issues of deforestation we cannot condemn the practice in the past. The historic clearing of forests was to allow civilizations to grow and flourish, while many of the forests cleared today are for economic reasons only. We now know that 80 percent of the world´s ancient forests have been destroyed.

This situation has changed however, and issues surrounding deforestation are known and recognized. Back in the 1980´s the issues of preserving the rain forests of South America started to become high profile and artists such as Sting helped raise awareness. Despite this, in the past 30 years aggressive deforestation has continued -- and much of it has been illegal.

PREHISTORY

Prehistory Deforestation has been practiced by humans for tens of thousands of years before the beginnings of civilization[104]. Fire was the first tool that allowed humans to modify the landscape. The first evidence of deforestation appears in the Mesolithic period.[105] It was probably used to convert closed forests into more

open ecosystems favourable to game animals[106]. With the advent of agriculture, fire became the prime tool to clear land for crops. In Europe there is little solid evidence before 7000 BC. Mesolithic foragers used fire to create openings for red deer and wild boar. In Great Britain shade tolerant species such as oak and ash are replaced in the pollen record by hazels, brambles, grasses and nettles. Removal of the forests led to decreased transpiration resulting in the formation of upland peat bogs. Widespread decrease in elm pollen across Europe between 8400-8300 BC and 7200-7000 BC, starting in southern Europe and gradually moving north to Great Britain, may represent land clearing by fire at the onset of Neolithic agriculture.

An array of Neolithic artifacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools.

The Neolithic period saw extensive deforestation for farming land.[107][108] Stone axes were being made from about 3000 BC not just from flint, but from a wide variety of hard rocks from across Britain and North America as well. They include the noted Langdale axe industry in the English Lake District, quarries developed at Penmaenmawr in North Wales and numerous other locations. Rough-outs were made locally near the quarries, and some were polished locally to give a fine finish. This step not only increased the mechanical strength of the axe, but also made penetration of wood easier. Flint was still used from sources such as Grimes Graves but from many other mines across Europe.

Evidence of deforestation has been found in Minoan Crete; for example the environs of the Palace of Knossos were severely deforested in the Bronze Age.

Rainforest deforestation

The difficulties of estimating deforestation rates are nowhere more apparent than in the widely varying estimates of rates of rainforest deforestation. At one extreme Alan Grainger, of Leeds University, argues that there is no credible evidence of any longterm decline in rainforest area [116] while at the other some environmental groups argue that one fifth of the world's tropical rainforest was destroyed between 1960 and 1990, that rainforests 50 years ago covered 14% of the worlds land surface and have been reduced to 6%.[117] and that all tropical forests will be gone by the year 2090 [118]. While the FAO states that the annual rate of tropical closed forest loss is declining [119](FAO data are based largely on reporting from forestry departments of individual countries)[120] from 8 million has in the 1980s to 7 million in the 1990s some environmentalists are stating that rainforest are being destroyed at an ever-quickening pace.[121] The London-based Rainforest Foundation notes that "the UN figure is based on a definition of forest as being an area with as little as 10% actual tree cover, which would therefore include areas that are actually savannah-like ecosystems and badly damaged forests."

These divergent viewpoints are the result of the uncertainties in the extent of tropical deforestation. For tropical countries, deforestation estimates are very uncertain and could be in error by as much as +/- 50% [123] while based on satellite imagery, the rate of deforestation in the tropics is 23% lower than the most commonly quoted rates [124]. Conversely a new analysis of satellite images reveal that deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is twice as fast as scientists previously estimated.[125] The extent of deforestation that has occurred in West Africa during the twentieth century is currently being hugely exaggerated