8.2 - Threats To Tropical Rainforest

Question 1

What are some threats to tropical rainforest?

Answer 1

• Local demand for fuelwood
• Commercial hardwood
• Subsistence farming
• Demand for biofuels
• Electricity (HEP)
• Mineral reosurces

Question 2

What are the environmental impacts of deforestation?

Answer 2

• No trees to hold soil together so rain washes it away
• Without a tree canopy to intercept rainfall and tree roots to absorb it more nutrients reach soil. So nutrients are washed away
• Trees remove co2 from the atmosphere, but burning them produces co2 so more co2 global warming

Question 3

Why is climate change an indirect threat to tropical rainforest?

Answer 3

• Temperature is increasing and rainfall decreasing in some areas of the TRF
• This leads to droughts which causes ecosystem stress, plants and animals are adapted to moist conditions so many die - extinction
• Drought can also cause forest fires which destroy large areas