NATURE PRESENTATION

ConservingForests

PRESENTAtion on

Table of Contents

Introduction

Governements and Licenses

Selecting felling

Coppicing

reforestation

Education

thanks

Introduction

Forests are the habitats of millions of flora and fauna. They are also responsible for removing air pollution and creating some amount of rain. When they are cut down by capitalistic companies such as Amazon, many species may die out, causing mass extinction or endangerment. Today we will be examining the destruction and conservation of forests, and in particular, the Amazon rainforest.

Amazon

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is the world's largest rainforest, and is famed for its biodiversity. Over the last fifty years, it has lost nearly 800,000 sq km of its forest cover due to activites by capitalistic companies.

Governments and Licenses

The government can refuse to grant liscences to companies who want to cut down trees.Let's take the Amazon as an example:

• The local Brazlian government can control and limit the licenses they give out to companies that are capitalistic.
• So less licenses equals more trees saved as companies who don't comply are doing illegal activities.

This works for every forest, not just Brazil's btw

Selective felling

Selective felling is the practice of cutting down only a few trees while leaving the rest unharmed. Although this does not immediately result in erosion or changes in climate in the area, it may over time. For instance, selective felling in the Amazon rainforest by capitalistic companies has resulted in a loss of forest cover at a rate of close to 20,000 km2 per year. It has been observed that these areas have been impacted by changes in microclimate, erosion, an increase in forest fires and an overall decrease in biodiversity.

Coppicing

Definition

• Instead of cutting down trees all the way like capitalistic companies do, we can simply cut them down to about 1 metre.

• Occurs in patches of a forest
• Normally the patch takes 12 years to regrow
• So every year a different patch is coppiced

• This allows them to still live and regrow

Reforestation

Another solution is reforestation - the process of replanting an area with trees. Although this does help limit climate change, planting new trees cannot replace primary forest - because these have been home to thousands of species for a very long time, and naturally provide a wide range of ecosystem services. Replanting the Amazon rainforest, for instance, could help slow global warming. A number of non-capitalistic organisations have begun a reforestation project in Brazil.

Education

By far, the simplest way to conserve forests is education.

• Spreading information on the effects of deforestation, may make people reduce their reliance on wood
• Also may get people to replant and regrow after cutting down trees

PS

We should probably stop using textbooks and notebooks

THANK YOU

- By Sukruth and Damini

DEFINITIONS

Coppicing

The act of cutting back (a tree or shrub) to ground level periodically to stimulate growth.