env1, Chavakali High School, Kenya, Question:
Introduction:
Rainforests are known for its capacity to effectively clean environmental pollutions.
Yet heavy deforestation is taking place in the world: already around 60% of the region being covered by forest in the world has been cleared.
So our main question is: What can be done to stop further deforestation in the world?
Please include:
1) Research what your government in your country already does to lower the use of wood from rainforests (export and import)
2) Research what your school community could contribute to lower the use of wood from rainforests
3) Discuss the outcome of 2) and prioritize the 3 most effective activities in your school community.
Answer from env2
1) Research what your government in your country already does to lower the use of wood from rainforests (export and import)
Although Canada does not have a warm enough climate to have any rainforests, we do have many forests, the largest being the Boreal Forest – covering 2.2 million square miles. Most of the boreal forest is intact, although industrial activity from the tar sands and logging has left the eco-system in danger. There has recently been a three-year suspension on logging in 70 million acres of the boreal forest, and improved logging among the remaining 106 million acres.
2) Research what your school community could contribute to lower the use of wood from rainforests
One of the initiatives that our school participates in is to print double-sided and be more environmentally conscious when printing onto paper. As a high-tech school who often prints many pages of worksheets and assignments, cutting this down would make a start at reducing the amount of paper consumed.
3) Discuss the outcome of 2) and prioritize the 3 most effective activities in your school community.
1. Paper usage – By reducing the amount of paper our school uses, we will significantly reduce the amount we contribute to deforestation.
2. Awareness – By making people aware of how much paper we use as a school and the effects of this on the environment, we can improve the amount of paper we use, shown in initiative number 1.
3. Fundraiser – Our school often puts on fundraisers for various causes, and by pushing this as a cause we could help support anti-deforestation initiatives such as Greenpeace Canada.
Answer from env3
Deforestation
If you asked people 10 years ago if they knew what deforestation is most of them would have said no. “Deforestation is the permanent removal of forest cover from an area, and the conversion of this previously forested land to other uses. Deforestation is not logging it is the result of clearing trees for a change to a non-forest land use, such as agriculture”. Deforestation is becoming a serious issue throughout the world. Trees are such important aspects to any ecosystem, and to people. Trees take in the carbon dioxide we emit and produce oxygen which we breathe in. Wood is such a valuable resource that we sometimes take for granted seeing as we have such an abundant supply of it. Now that we are becoming aware of many environmental problems such as greenhouse gases and global warming, deforestation has become an issue of great importance. “Already 60% of the region being covered by forest in the world has been cleared”.
One of Canada’s many exports is wood. It is the primary reason as to why our economy recovered from the recession in such a small period of time compared to other powers such as the United States. Some things the Canadian government is trying to do to reduce the amount of deforestation is Integrated Landscape Management (ILM). ILM means planning land uses over an entire landscape and encouraging different land users to work together. For example, coordinate forest clearing with oil sands development, to ensure forest companies harvest timber cleared for oil sand use. We feel that Canada monitors it deforestation rate very well compared to other nations because deforestation affected less than 0.002% of Canadian forest in 2005. In addition, Canada’s deforestation rate accounts for less than 0.04% of the world’s rate.
Some things that our school has implented to reduce deforestation is that we have an eco-club that plants trees. As well, our school is becoming more technologically advanced; we now use Moodle instead of printing handouts and wasting paper. As students, we could contribute to reducing the deforestation rate by using led pencils instead of using wooden pencils. In addition, we could reuse more paper, and personally recycle more. We as students need to change our ways because we are the future of tomorrow, it will be up to us to fix this problem. If we are not willing to make the necessary changes the problem will exist for generations and generations to come. Rainforest are the lungs of our planet.
Austin Sooklall, Rishy Mahendran, Naazim Sufi, Owais Khan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn521aOASvg
Answer from env4
Canada imports Timber wood, which does not help the deforestation problem considering it is expected in 10 years, that Timber will be totally destroyed. Canada also exports $8.5 billion worth of softwood lumber to the United States. Although Canada does this, our practices protect the environment more than the United States does. In Canada, we don’t harvest all of our forests, we grow twice as much as used. In British Columbia, there is an agreement to protect 50% of the forests in the region. The agreement involves natural level of old growth forest in the region. This includes achieving the goal of low ecological risk for the forest and key species by setting and reviewing logging rules and regulations. This agreement was made in 2009 and is on going until 2014, including the help from Provincial and First Nation governments, environmental organizations and logging companies. ForestEthics, Greenpeace and Sierra Club BC are working with coastal forest companies to implement the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement. They all collaborated to make the group JSP ( Joint Solutions Project), their main goal focusing on developing a model of conserving and managing globally significant forests.
This is a video that was made for the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival by Pacific Wildlife regarding the very famous and at risk Great Bear rainforest. This is a video to help save the oils that are being put dumped by Enbridge Northern Pipeline.
2) Research what your school community could contribute to lower the use of wood from rainforests
Logging companies are cutting down some of the most endangered forests on the planet to make wood and paper products. These products include: office paper, phone books, toilet paper, furniture, window trims, etc. The more people consume these products, the more the companies have to cut down trees to supply these products.
Our school is an Eco-friendly school. They help the environment by recycling and turning off the lights. To help save rainforests, the school community can reduce their paper-use. They can purchase paper products that are made with recycled content or tree-free materials (such as waste straw, kenaf and hemp). They can also educate students and parents on the values and benefits of rainforests. By talking to the community, our schools can help to explain why we should help save rainforests. Schools can also join groups and organizations that help to protect rainforests.
Before:
After:
3) Discuss the outcome of
2) and prioritize the 3 most effective activities in your school community.
Due to the fact that the rain forest are being cut down, many of plant used for pharmaceuticals being cut down also. By our school contributing to lower the use of wood from the rain forest, we are saving millions of trees that can provide oxygen and different plants that can be used forpharmaceuticals. About 25% of western pharmaceuticals are made from plants in the rain forest. Also, through recycling we can save wood , by not cutting down as many trees from the rain forest. In addition, by taking it to the community we can open the eyes of other individuals and more people can assist us to stop deforestation. Thus, slowly but surely with the different responsibilities we take (Recycling, turning off lights), we can help stop deforestation and better out planet.
The most effective activity in our school community would be School Recycle Day which is the day when everyone in our school picks up and brings the recycling bins in their classroom or the bins in the hallway to the Industrial recycling bin that is located outside. Our School Recycle Day takes place every Friday on our fourth period class, which is the last period of the day after that we go home. Why this is the most effective activity in our school community is because it gets everyone in our school community to get aware of what should go in the recycle bins and what should not be going in the recycled bins. It also gets everyone in the school community to particulate in recycling.
The second most effective activity in our school community is when we have Earth Week at school. Earth Week is when the environmental club plans special events for that whole week just to lead up to Earth Day. It is also used to inform students and teachers about bad choices we are making and how it’s effecting the many environments around the planet and they inform on how we can change our actions in order to help save these environments from getting destroyed. Why this is the second most effective activity in our school community is because it only happens once every school year but besides that it informs people in our school community on what is happening to our planet when we make bad decisions with our garbage or when we don't turn off the light when we leave a room.
Finally the Third most effective activity would have to be the event that takes place on Earth Day .On Earth day everyone in our school goes outside at some point of the day, so they are able to pick up the trash that surrounds our school. Before going outside every class is assigned an area to pick up trash after ten minutes or so everyone is called back in the school. The reason why this is the third most effective activity in our school community is because it only happens once a year and not everyone helps pick up trash but beside those things it still tries to get everyone involved to clean the school surrounding.
Answer from env5
Dear ENV1
We believe that youth should be involve in environmental conservation because,conserving the environmental will help make it a better and save place for us the future generation;our involvement will also send a positive signal to world leaders that we are concern about the future the earth;conserving the environment will help safe plant and animal from extinction.If we do not get involve we will not be able to see and benefit from plant and animals that would be extinct. For example Liberia had a large hippopotamus population in the natural forest but illegal hunting and indiscriminate killing of these animal in hunting have made the hippo population to either migrate or disappear in the Liberia forest.
Liberia has a rich natural Rain Forest which contribution immensely to our national Economy.During our 15 year civil war,illegal logging activities were carry out in the forest thus contributing to a huge deforestation between 1990 to 2005.The united Nation Security council banned the exportation of timber and logged from Liberia in 2001,because of the illegal logging activities.In 2006,the sanction was lifted ,the government is now encouraging Re-forestation,Planting new trees in forest or woodland that have been depleted.The government has also introduce a bar coding sysem attached to log to track illegal logging activities.However,our research also reveal that the farming method widely practice in Liberia has also contributed to environmental pollution.In Liberia,rural farmers cut trees,clear a forest area and burn down the wood to create farming space.This practice have also contributed to carbon dioxide emission.
Our group has join an Environmental network called Environmental program Online for an annual ENO Tree planting event to promote a greener Liberia and help to reduce the impact of Global warming. We are creatig the awareness for trees planting at the community level and getting other schools involve. Our campaign is also against the cuting of forest wood to produce charcoal. Burning wood into charcoal is a serious economic activites in Liberia.Most people who burn wood for coal cut trees down indiscriminately,they sometimes get the wood from there farm areas.The stop cutting tree indiscrimenatly campaign has just begun we hope to create the awareness in other provinces.
Answer from env6
Hello friends from the learning circle.we would like to take this opportunity to answer your questions posted. Here is your answer:
Α. Since this is done by humans living in these countries i think by-laws should be enforced to prevent such people from cutting down trees in the environment, such people should be punished.
β. Also trees should be replaced after they have been cut down. Because there is a wise saying which says that when the last tree dies the last man dies.
- They have enforced modernized security to check the activities of those who conditionally fell trees for industrial and domestic purposes, thus, they have provided an open market for importation of man made wood
2. The purchase of metallic furniture and usage of recycled materials as paper could help to decrease the use of wood from trees, which will prevent the constant felling of trees, by and through human activities known as deforestation.
Answer from env7
It is now time to slow down or eliminate deforestation. Stopping deforestation would be easy if people would just cooperate with one another in that single initiative.
Indeed, environmentalists and forestry advocates have been reminding people and governments to immediately act on the problem regarding continued deforestation practices all around the world.
Deforestation could be slowly stopped if people would be more environmentally conscious. That means, to accelerate efforts in stopping deforestation, initiatives have to be started by you.
As a suggestion, the significant contribution you could do is to help curtail the demand for products that are reliant on deforestation. It does not necessarily mean that you would boycott products.
It means that you could start by advocating and participating in recycling programs. Paper is made from barks of trees that are in turn, mostly coming from forests. Did you know that you could recycle paper?
There are industries that are focused at recycling paper. Old and used paper would just be processed and turned into new paper products. If the practice becomes wide-scaled, the number of trees that has to be cut down would be reduced.
Governments around the world should also start implementing legislations that would effectively prevent the continued practice of deforestation. Sanctions should be given to violating parties. That way, there would be less people and companies that would engage in slash and burn practices.
Rain and dry forests should be protected by governments. They can be declared national properties, so no businesses can ever touch them. They can also be turned into national parks; thus, the overall state of these forests could be effectively preserved.
Reforestation can be a solution
Reforestation is the opposite of deforestation. If deforestation can be considered wounding of nature, reforestation is the sought-after healing process. In reforestation, forests are replanted with trees. In years, the forests would be much alive again.
Since the practice of deforestation in some cases could not be avoided, it can be regulated so as not to create negative impact to the environment and to biodiversity.
Deforestation could be slowed down. To do this, trees could be cut at slower rates. For each cut tree, a new one should be replanted. By that, logging activities would not be entirely scrapped, and at the same time, forests are renewed.
Answer from env8
XXX
Answer from env9
Global warming and global darkening are undoubtedly the most debated environmental issues in the world, but the serious environmental problem is the disappearance of forests. Even they are the second major contributor to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, deforestation occupies a minor role, insignificant in the concerns of the states.
The problem of deforestation in Romania is very alarming, because forests are exploited beyond any limit, at a rate too fast. If, by the end of the nineteenth century, Romania was covered in 80% of forests, now has grown to cover only one quarter of the country, Romania is below the European average of 30%. It can be considered as a first step to save forests the recycling of paper, a topic that is talked more often by people. Also, we must plant trees to fill the gaps in the forest. Last year, in Romania has developed a project called “ Let’s do it, Romania!” in which students have planted trees in certain areas. In our school already exists activities to protect and care the environment . We reuse, reduce and recycle because the nature needs us. "Think green, be green, make the world a greener place!"
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.