6.5 The Imapcts Of Deforestation On TRFs

Question 1

Local impacts of deforestation: soil erosion and fertility

Answer 1

• Heavy rain removes the top soil and its nutrients (leaching)
• Overgrazing means that land cannot regenerate

Question 2

Local impacts of deforestation: river pollution

Answer 2

Mercury from gold mining is washed into rivers and fish populations decrease

Question 3

Local impacts of deforestation: decline of indigenous tribes

Answer 3

• 90 tribes have been lost since 1900 and with this loss of local knowledge on the medicinal value of rainforest species
• People have been displaced by logging, gold mining and road building.
• They have found it difficult to settle in towns and cities and drug and alcohol addiction is common

Question 4

Local impacts of deforestation: conflicts

Answer 4

Deforestation is driven by economic development and population. The future is viewed differently by developers and conservationists.

Question 5

Local impacts of deforestation: local climate change

Answer 5

Deforestation reduces evapotranspiration so rainfall decreases over time and the area becomes drier and hotter (the rainfall is a natural cooling system)

Question 6

Global impacts of deforestation: global warming

Answer 6

• ‘threat to the survival of the human race’
• Clearing of forests (‘lungs of the Earth’) means less carbon dioxide is absorbed
• When wood is burned carbon dioxide stored by the tree is released back into the atmosphere

Question 7

Global impacts of deforestation: loss of biodiversity

Answer 7

• Could result in a loss of cures for life-threatening diseases (loss of ‘medicine cabinet’)
• 50,000 species of plants and animals lost
  every year

Question 8

Name the local impacts of deforestation

Answer 8

• soil erosion and fertility
• river pollution
• decline of indigenous tribes
• conflicts
• local climate change

Question 9

Name the global impacts of deforestation

Answer 9

• global warming
• loss of biodiversity

Question 10

Evaluation: are there more local or global impacts?

Answer 10

• There are more local impacts than global impacts,
• often the local impacts are linked to the global impacts (and vice versa)
• eg the decline of indigenous tribes means loss
  of local knowledge and skills making it harder to
  determine the true benefits of nature’s medicine cabinet

Question 11

Sustainability: how do we overcome the impacts

Answer 11

• to overcome both the local and global impacts of
  deforestation we must work together as a global
  community and decrease the demand put on the
  TRFs resources
• only then will the local and global impacts lessen