TBLU - Forests and Deforestation (Lesson)

Forests and Deforestation

Forests provide important ecological and economic services, are storehouses of biodiversity, and affect weather and climate throughout the world. Forest resource management varies according to the type of forest. In diverse forests, the age and size of trees are preserved to foster natural regeneration. Government policies will primarily determine the future of forests, including old-growth forests. In the picture below, Haiti, a country that has allowed massive clear-cutting is on the left, the Dominican Republic is on the right. The river you see going through the middle of the photo marks the boundary between the two countries.

 

Image of deforestation in Haiti

 

Because of the extensive deforestation that has occurred globally and throughout the United States, many remaining forests are considered to be secondary growth. When an old-growth forest is cut down and new growth emerges and is called secondary growth.

Forests in the United States should be managed so as to retain as much of the forests as possible. Clear-cutting and seed-tree cutting methods of harvesting are scourges on the forest; selective cutting is the most reasonable way to harvest trees.

Wildfire in California imageForest fires are certainly destructive and can be dangerous, but they are also a necessary part of the forest ecosystem. Many ecosystems depend on fires to help seeds germinate and to return nutrients to the soil. In a chaparral ecosystem, fire's extreme heat causes some species' seeds to open. Periodic fires also help to thin the underbrush in an ecosystem. Small fires that burn branches, twigs, and dead trees help to reduce a future fire's fuel, making a future fire less intense. However, if underbrush accumulates over a long period of time, as it did under the former Forest Service policy of fire suppression, the forest can be more prone to a larger, more devastating fire. Now, rather than suppressing fire, many areas use prescribed burns or controlled burns to help maintain forests.

Deforestation is one of the most serious environmental problems of this century. The Earth's forests have been reduced by 20-50% and the destruction continues to this day. Deforestation has many harmful environmental effects: reduces the ecological services of forests, releases large amounts of carbon dioxide in the air, produces a drier and hotter climate; reduces the control of water movements, and increases soil erosion.

Tropical deforestation is one of the biggest threats to world economic health and climate. To help sustain tropical forests, nations of the world must unite to discourage deforestation and degradation.

 

Read the following background essay, watch the video, and then answer the self-assessment questions:

Poisoned Waters: How Does Land Use Affect Water Quality

Background Essay

In America, we’ve always felt we had enough space to use land any way we wanted. Homesteaders planted their stakes in the virgin heartland. Post-war America built Levitt towns. Developers made fortunes converting farmland into suburban tracts. Dallas, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, and other cities vied to create the nation’s biggest mall. But lately, so many millions have crowded into areas along our coastlines, lakes, and rivers, that three-fourths of Americans now live within 50 miles of a major body of water. Tat trend focuses new attention on the loss of open land near our waterways and on how land use affects water quality. Scientists and regulators tell us, for example, that controlling land use is the key to reducing stormwater runoff and its harmful pollution. States from Florida and Maryland to Oregon and California have passed growth management laws. The law passed in Washington State requires county governments to concentrate development in established urban areas, to impose strict zoning, and to protect environmentally critical areas such as forests, streams, shorelines, and wetlands. King County (the Seattle area) has become a laboratory for testing the new politics of land use. It’s an area bigger than Rhode Island – home not just to Seattle and 1.8 million people, but two-thirds of the county is still forest. It’s an area where the state seeks to control the pace of development. Ron Sim, county chief executive from 1995-2009, has been on a mission to save Puget Sound by managing land use with a three-pronged strategy: “We ‘re encouraging active land use in urban areas,” he says. “We’re discouraging it in our agricultural areas, and we are now buying the land in our forest areas.” With $22 million in taxpayer money, Sims bought development rights on 90,000 acres of timberland to block development in a huge area high above Seattle. He passed a zoning measure 20 years ago setting a minimum of five acres per home in rural areas, stopping most subdivisions. In 2004, with a Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO), Sims limited landowners on the amount of land they could clear – one-third of ten-acre plots, one-half of five-acre plots; the rest had to remain in woods and natural growth. That caused an uproar. Property owners said they were being stripped of their rights unfairly and without reason. Sims replied the limits were scientifically set. Studies showed that to control stormwater runoff, two-thirds of rural areas had to remain under vegetation. Some property owners complained the new CAP had cost them money because they couldn’t subdivide the land. Sims replied that the zoning law had blocked subdividing much earlier and no one had lost the use of their land. The battle landed in the courts, with both Sims and Governor Chris Gregiore warning that if Washington’s supreme court struck down the ordinance, it would undermine the state’s whole environmental strategy. Said Sims: “It’ll be the abandonment of everything that our state has voted on consistently, which is they want environmental protection here.” Background Essay is written by Hedrick Smith.

 

Please watch this video below.

Frontline: Poisoned Waters Links to an external site.

 

Self-Assessment Questions

State and local governments pass growth management laws and zoning regulations.

  • How are policies protecting the environment?
  • Are such policies being applied in your area?
  • How do political leaders and the general public reconcile the common need to protect the environment with the private rights of property owners?

 

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.