What happens if the trees disappear. Why are forests disappearing and what does this mean for humanity?

Conversation

If the trees disappear

Progress: we go on a journey into the forest, where there are certain rules for all the inhabitants. Look at the pictures depicting animals, plants, birds, insects living in the forest. Select all the cards with pictures of plants: pine, oak, spruce, rowan, birch, aspen, hazel. After checking the correctness of execution, the teacher gives the following task: find the animals that feed on these plants. This group includes: caterpillars, butterflies, beetles, bees, butterflies, herbivores (mice, hares, moose, wild boars). Now find those who feed on those located on the other flannelgraph. These are insectivores: birds, hedgehogs, foxes and other small predators. Here is a chain: oak - acorns - mice - fox. If you destroy or cut down trees, the natural balance will be disrupted: birds will have nowhere to live, animals will have nothing to eat, and the lower layer of the ecosystem will disappear. What needs to be done to avoid harming the forest? What reminder signs will tell us? (Children choose the appropriate signs: do not cut down trees, do not break branches, do not damage the bark, do not leave garbage in the forest).

Conclusion: guys, did you understand the rules by which the inhabitants of the forest live? (children's statements) Nobody breaks these rules, everyone in the forest needs each other, everyone is useful.

Conversation

Why does the earth feed us

Target: introduce children to the components that make up soil. Cultivate cognitive interest and develop research skills.

Preliminary work: the day before, talk about soil, look at illustrations of different soils, invite children to conduct several simple experiments to find out what components are included in the composition of soil

1. Take a lump of dry soil and put it in water: we noticed the appearance of bubbles on the lump. Through experiment, we determined that there is air in the soil.

2. Heat a lump of soil over a fire and hold a cold glass over it: the glass will become covered with drops of water. What conclusion can we draw? There is water in the soil.

We'll find out the rest later...

Progress of the conversation: Want to know what else is in the soil. Let's do another experiment. Let's heat the soil. An unpleasant odor appears. What conclusion can we draw?

We don't know.

This burns humus, i.e., the remains of plants and animals that are contained in the soil. What else is in the soil? It turns out that the soil contains sand and clay. In order to prove this, we need to do an experiment: let's calcinate the soil to a gray color. This color is formed after the combustion of humus. Place the remaining soil in a glass of water and mix. After some time, we will see that sand has settled to the bottom of the glass, and a layer of clay on top.

Bottom line: what conclusion can we draw? Soil contains water, air, humus, sand, and clay. What can you call such soil? Fertile. Let's plant oats in different soils (in three pots): sandy, clayey and fertile, black soil. Let's see how the planted plants develop. In a week the seeds will sprout, in two weeks we’ll see the difference. In fertile soil, the sprouts are taller, stronger, juicier, brighter. In the other two pots the sprouts are weaker. Conclusion: in fertile soil, plants produce the best harvest; such soil feeds us, because it contains many substances useful for plant growth.

Conversation

Birth of a forest

Target: generalize children's ideas about typical ecosystems: forest, meadow. Develop the ability to independently establish relationships in ecosystems: when any living organisms in the community disappear, environmental conditions change. Which can lead to the death of other organisms. To consolidate children's knowledge about the rules of behavior in ecosystems.

Material: paintings “Forest after a fire”, “Trampled meadow”, geographical map of Russia.

On the eve of the conversation, does the teacher bring into the group a card with distress symbols (SOS) on it? He suggests looking at it, remembering in what cases a distress signal is given. Children remember that on the map forests are indicated in green, plains in yellow, and reservoirs in blue.

The teacher suggests looking at the painting “Forest after the fire.” What do you think happened here? (children's assumptions) You can't breathe from the forest fire and smoke. Smoke covers the sun. Fire penetrates deep into the ground and destroys the roots of plants. Nothing holds the soil; it is carried away by wind and water. Gullies are formed. All the inhabitants of the forest disappear and die. Help!!! Why does a forest die after a fire?

Children build a chain: the plants have died - there is nowhere for plants, birds, insects to live and nothing to eat. Dead plants do not release oxygen, the air becomes lifeless. This is harmful to people's health. How can we fix this? Children list the plants of the forest, select pictures with their images, and remember how the plants are distributed among the floors. Didactic game “Who will return to the forest?” Grass grew and insects and small terrestrial animals appeared. Shrubs grew and insectivorous birds appeared. The trees grew and the animals and birds living on them returned. Children build chains by arranging object pictures.

What needs to be done to create a forest? Sow grass, plant shrubs, young trees.

Questions to discuss with children:

What rules of conduct in the forest must be followed to prevent accidents from occurring?

What plants grow first after a fire?

How long does it take for the forest to rustle again at the site of the fire?

Conversation

What happens if you kill insects

Goal: to consolidate children’s knowledge about the food dependence of forest inhabitants. Learn to build food chains in the forest. To educate children in a humane, environmentally appropriate attitude towards nature.

Materials: cards with images of animals, plants, birds, insects, twine for the ecological game “Food Chains”, flannelgraph, models of inanimate nature “Sun, Air, Water”.

Guys, today we will go on a trip to a forest clearing (meadow). A meadow is an open space, it is light, warm, and has a lot of sunlight. Various plants grow there: daisies, clover, carnations, cereal grasses. Insects always fly above them: butterflies, bumblebees, mosquitoes, dragonflies. They sit on one flower. Then they fly to another, feed on their juice, and collect nectar. On their body, legs, and abdomen they transfer pollen from one flower to another, i.e., they pollinate them. Therefore, there are many flowers growing in the meadow. All the inhabitants of the meadow are not random plants and animals. They all need each other. Now listen to V. Bianchi’s fairy tale “The Owl”. After reading the fairy tale, the teacher offers to figure out why the cow’s milk became low and it became liquid. Invite the children to lay out on a flannelgraph a chain of interconnected objects of the meadow community: an owl - catches mice - few mice - many insects - a lot - clover - good milk from a cow - a satisfied old man. And the reverse chain: no owl - many mice - few insects - little clover - skinny cow - bad milk - disgruntled old man.

So, we can conclude: in nature everything is interconnected: plants, animals, insects. Everyone needs and is useful to each other.

What do you think will happen if there are no mosquitoes or midges?

(children's thoughts)

We wake up one morning, go out into the street and see... In the city, it’s unlikely that anything will catch our eye the first time, but outside of it we’ll immediately notice - there are houses around, pillars, a road, and besides them, there’s not much to see what to catch. There are no trees or grass. Just bare earth and asphalt everywhere, animals roaming in search of food and birds darting across the sky...

And all this because all the plants have disappeared. That's it - since they are not found anywhere else on Earth. And what awaits us in the future? It would seem - well, no, and okay, we’ll get used to it and continue to live. But in reality, everything is not so simple.

Of course, vegetarians will be the first to experience the shock - plant foods will first jump in price and cost much more than gold. Very quickly she will be gone. We will have to switch to animal and synthetic food, but there simply won’t be enough industrial capacity to cover demand. Hunger is what awaits humanity in the first few days. A half-starved existence on animal and artificial food will not last long.

Plants are the most important link in the food chain. All forms of life on Earth depend on plants in one way or another. Herbivores eat only plants. A huge mass of the population of rivers, lakes and oceans eat various algae. It would seem - so what, there will be no cows - they will learn how to make artificial milk. Is it a big problem? Yes, it's great!

All species of animals that feed exclusively on plant foods will become extinct very quickly. Only the predators will remain. For some time they will have food - those same half-living herbivores, and then they will simply begin to destroy each other. As they say, hunger is not a problem. Moreover, starving humanity will begin to intensively exterminate first domestic animals, and then everyone in a row, and they are more dangerous than all predators combined. When they end, what awaits us? Maybe cannibalism?

The day will come when there will not be a single animal and not a single person left on Earth, except perhaps flies and some other insects, for which there will still be food left in the form of the corpses of the last dead. What will remain are bacteria and protozoa that feed on inorganic food. Perhaps, in millions of years, new forms of animal and plant life will emerge from them. Or maybe they will be something in between, taking into account this zigzag of evolution...

In light of total extinction from starvation, is it worth mentioning such an important role of plants as oxygen production? Hardly. Hunger will overtake us faster than the oxygen will run out, especially considering the rapidly decreasing number of living people. People will have much more serious concerns to go to work under the threat of complete extinction. It is unlikely that factories will continue to smoke the sky - soon there will simply be no one to work for them. Accordingly, all environmentally harmful transport will also stop.

But billions of dead animals and people dying on the streets will create another problem - the threat of global epidemics. They will greatly accelerate the process of destruction of the world as we know it. So you shouldn’t be so careless with “non-living” bushes and herbs. Without them we are nothing.

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Currently, half of the forests that once covered the surface of the planet no longer exist. Most of them have been destroyed over the past thirty years, and this process continues to gain momentum. The International World Resources Institute, concerned about the state of the planet's forest wealth, undertook a large-scale study of the state of forests in different countries. Scientists, public figures, and environmentalists are looking for ways to save and preserve forests. The published article describes these efforts.
The main focus of life on Earth, the habitat of the largest number of living organisms, is forests. They provide shelter and food, shelter from enemies and generously share their gifts. Of all natural ecosystems, it was forests that were subjected to the most cruel treatment by humans - they were cut down, burned, uprooted for arable land and construction sites.

The relationship between mankind and the forest for several centuries was determined by the concept of “conquest.” The forest was seen either as an obstacle to the development of progress, or as a commodity that could be sold for a profit.

However, this attitude towards nature did not go unpunished: history knows many examples when ancient civilizations died out due to the fact that people cut down forests: this was followed by soil erosion, silting of rivers, depletion of fertile lands, which led to the decline of agriculture. This is how the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, and Central America died or disappeared from the historical stage.

Today, the barbaric treatment of nature has caused a sharp deterioration in the ecology of our entire planet. Therefore, experts believe that in the new millennium we must develop a different approach to the forest. Jonathan Lash, president of the international World Resources Institute, suggests sticking to a concept that has been called the "development frontier." This is not about an aggressive violation of the boundaries of the forest, but about reasonable interaction with it at this boundary. The analogy becomes clearer if we imagine forest ecosystems and humanity as two independent states that respect each other's interests and maintain diplomatic relations. Forest areas that are beyond the boundaries of development, that is, practically untouched and undisturbed by humans, are declared to be of particular value. Such forests remain only in some regions of the planet: in Central Africa, Asia, Canada, the Amazon basin and Russia. The World Resources Institute proposes to influence public and political organizations to ensure the protection and wise use of forests.

This is important, first of all, for preserving the biological diversity of our planet. Undeveloped forests provide shelter for species of animals and birds whose habitat extends over tens of thousands of square kilometers: for example, bears, wolves, tigers, and some bird species. On the other hand, only in such forests, where humans have rarely set foot, are the special living conditions necessary for the life of certain species of animals preserved. For example, the spotted owl nests in standing but already dead trees, which are found only in old forests that have never been cleared. Unfortunately, most of the planet's forests are gradually turning into so-called fragmented forests. In them, there is an active displacement of species living in the depths of the forest by those that are more typical of life on the edge: it is known that in small groves, the nests of songbirds are constantly attacked by cuckoos, rollers and other species, displacing the “original” inhabitants of the forest.

Fragmented forests cannot ensure the normal functioning of the entire biosphere of the planet. Undeveloped forests alone absorb enormous amounts of carbon—about 433 billion tons—that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, creating the greenhouse effect. They protect the forests and water resources of the planet: in those areas where forest cover has disappeared on the watersheds of large rivers, for example in the Ganges Valley, floods have become frequent, which is a real environmental disaster. The destruction of forests also leads to soil erosion, which is progressing at an alarming rate: scientists have calculated that since 1950, when deforestation developed at a rapid pace, there are 580 million hectares less fertile land on the planet. This territory is larger than all of Western Europe!

Undeveloped forests are the habitat of ancient peoples who have not been touched by civilization. These are primarily the natives of the Amazon and Africa. Today it is already clear that their primitive culture, closely connected with the natural life of nature, is a value for other inhabitants of the Earth. A civilized society has no moral right to destroy it.

And the last argument in favor of the urgent need to protect undeveloped forests: it is in this territory that natural processes occurring in nature are preserved. Only there can we observe and study it in the form in which it existed on Earth before the appearance of man.

The International World Resources Institute, together with the World Conservation Monitoring Center, undertook an extensive study and, using the most modern techniques, obtained a map of the state of the planet's forests over the past 8,000 years.

It turned out that over these 80 centuries, almost half of the once-existing forests were destroyed for fields, pastures, farms, and settlements.

Of the remaining, only 22 percent consist of natural ecosystems, the rest have been greatly altered by human pressure.

The best preserved are the so-called boreal forests - a wide belt of coniferous trees between the Arctic tundra and the deciduous forests of the warmer temperate zone. These are the forests of Russia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada. They remained intact thanks to the harsh climate, long winters and poor soils in their growing area - all this did not contribute much to the development of agriculture. In addition, boreal forests grow very slowly, are scattered over a large area and are of little interest for logging.

Temperate forests suffered much more severely. They once extended to most of Europe, China, America, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina. The mild climate and fertile soils served them poorly: they were mercilessly destroyed. Who would now believe that in ancient times China was covered with forests? After all, by 100 BC. e. most of these forests were reduced to arable land. And the forests bordering the Mediterranean Sea were destroyed by the ancient Greeks and Romans 2000 years ago. The undeveloped forests of Europe fell in the Middle Ages to the onslaught of rapidly growing cities and settlements.

Tropical forests in the equator zone are also under threat. Even in the last century they remained in a virgin state, but from 1960 to 1990 a fifth of the tropical forest cover was destroyed.

What's left? Most of the undeveloped forests are made up of three large forest tracts: one in Russia, the second stretching across parts of Canada and Alaska, and the third is a tropical forest in the northwestern Amazon Basin. A considerable part of these forests is under threat of extinction: they are planned to be used for agricultural land, clearing for logging and other types of human activity that will disturb natural ecosystems. Therefore, emergency measures are needed for their protection and environmentally sound use. Otherwise, they too will disappear from the face of the planet.

SEARCHING FOR AN EXIT

The International World Resources Institute is developing a new approach to forest management that includes several steps. First of all, all necessary information about the state of forests must be collected and easy and quick access to it must be ensured for organizations interested in protecting the green cover of the planet. It is also necessary to create a system of payments for the use of forest resources that would prevent corruption and predatory waste, and obtaining quick benefits. A system of measures has also been proposed to improve the condition of the remaining forests on the planet, both undeveloped and altered by human activity. Part of the forest areas should be preserved from logging and land use: the state can receive income from them, using them for tourism, protecting watersheds and protecting the country's biological diversity. Public, private and public organizations that make decisions about the fate of forests in a particular region must necessarily have mechanisms in place to plan the so-called responsible use of forests.

The institute recommends to each state on whose territory forests have been preserved:

Protect your undeveloped forests, even if similar ecosystems exist in a neighboring country.

Maintain at least two “options” of each type of forest ecosystem.

Organize land use in areas adjacent to undeveloped forests in such a way as to protect them as much as possible.

Try to restore fragmented and endangered forests.

It turns out that even those forests that have been subjected to destructive human activity can be restored, at least partially. This is confirmed by an experiment that has been carried out by environmentalists in the northwestern part of Costa Rica since the mid-80s. A large tract of tropical dry forest in the Guanacaste protected area was in poor condition due to logging and frequent human-caused fires. As a result, the species of trees and grasses that used to grow there began to be replaced by invader species. Forest fires and clearings became covered with thickets of Jaragua grass, and the plants characteristic of this type of forest disappeared.

PLANT TREES - SHOW LOVE AND CARE FOR OUR EARTH!

Forests play a very important role in the life of our planet. Without them, life would be practically impossible. But what exactly are the functions of green areas? What happens if forests die?

Plot for Hollywood

A happy American family living in a small cozy house with a garden somewhere near the east coast of the United States suddenly discovers that it has become unusually hot during the day and unusually cold at night.

The garden is slowly being invaded by ever-increasing hordes of insects.

Finally, one morning, with clear skies and warm weather, a nearby river suddenly overflows its banks, and soon the entire area is flooded with water.

Fortunately, we are not threatened with a complete sudden disappearance of forests, but extremely unfavorable events, even catastrophic ones, will occur even if a small part of them dies. And the process has already started. To understand what is happening, we need to remember what the role of forests is in the Earth’s ecosystem.

Hungry years

Deforestation occurs both due to natural causes and as a result of human activities. For Russia, this problem is not yet very relevant - our forests have a greater restoration potential than, say, tropical ones, therefore, in place of the cleared tracts, if the bare areas are not built up and plowed up, new ones most often grow.

The plowing and development of forests in Russia is now also not the most widespread phenomenon, although the threat of clearing a significant amount of natural plantings for development purposes has become more noticeable in recent years “thanks to” new forest legislation.

What happened before? Historians are well aware of the fact that in 1891 an unprecedented famine broke out in Russia, literally shaking the empire. The reason was crop failure caused by severe drought, which primarily affected forest-steppe and steppe areas. And throughout the 19th century there were many such hungry years in our country. Nevertheless, it was the famine of 1891 that served as the impetus for events in a wide variety of spheres of public life.

The disaster of 1891 confronted the Russian government with the need to find out what the causes of these phenomena were. The answer given by the young talented geologist V.V. Dokuchaev, was revolutionary for those times: disastrous droughts occur as a result of environmental degradation of territories caused by deforestation and environmentally hazardous agricultural practices. The largest climatologist of that time, A.I., shared the same opinion. Voeikov.

As a result, a familiar to almost everyone appeared forest belt system in sparsely forested regions of Russia. Unfortunately, in some regions there are still not enough of them, and in the forest zone there are many open unused places where forests once grew. They would be worth replanting.

Regulation of temperature and hydrological conditions

Back in the 20s of the last century, L.S. Berg noted:

“A lot has been written on the issue of the influence of forests on climate... Undoubtedly, extensive forests should have a certain effect on the temperature of the surrounding areas... how the forest affects the precipitation that has already fallen. Inside the forest itself, the amount of rain reaching the soil is less than in the field, because a significant part of the precipitation remains on the leaves, branches and trunks, and also evaporates. According to observations in Austria, in a dense spruce forest only 61% of precipitation reaches the soil, in a beech forest 65%. Observations in the Buzuluksky pine forest of the Samara province showed that 77% of all precipitation reaches the soil... The importance of forests for the process of snow melting is enormous. Its effect is threefold: firstly, the forest prevents the blowing of snow and thus acts as a keeper of its reserves; then, by shading the soil, the trees prevent the snow from melting quickly. Secondly, by delaying air movement, the forest slows down the exchange of air above the snow. And the latest observations show that snow melts not so much due to the absorption of radiant energy from the sun, but due to contact with significant masses of warm air rushing over the snow. By maintaining snow cover for a long time, the forest regulates water flow in rivers in spring and early summer. Forests are of particular importance in countries with long and snowy winters, for example in Russia.”

Thus, already at the beginning of the twentieth century, the most important role of green space as a regulator of temperature and hydrological regimes was well known.

The forest significantly influences the distribution and accumulation of summer and especially winter precipitation. On the one hand, it maintains the groundwater level, reduces surface water runoff, on the other hand, it enhances the processes of plant transpiration, condenses more water vapor, which increases the frequency of summer precipitation.

That is, the role of forests in the water and soil regime of an area is diverse and depends on the species composition of woody plants, their biological characteristics, and geographic distribution.

Dust storms

The death of forests can cause severe erosion processes, which have also been known for a long time and can be talked about for quite a long time. The same Dokuchaev considered deforestation one of the reasons for the occurrence of dust storms. And this is how he described one of the cases of a dust storm in Ukraine in 1892:

“Not only was the thin snow cover completely torn off and carried away from the fields, but also the loose soil, bare of snow and dry as ash, was thrown up by whirlwinds at 18 degrees below zero. Clouds of dark earthen dust filled the frosty air, covering the roads, sweeping over gardens - in some places trees were carried to a height of 1.5 meters - lay in mounds and mounds on the streets of villages and greatly hampered movement on the railways: it was even necessary to tear railway stops away from the snowdrifts of black dust , mixed with snow."

During a dust storm in 1928 in the steppe and forest-steppe regions of Ukraine (where, by that time, a significant part of the forests had already been destroyed and the steppes were plowed), the wind lifted more than 15 million tons of black soil into the air. Black earth dust was carried by the wind to the west and settled over an area of ​​6 million km2 in the Carpathian region, Romania and Poland. The thickness of the chernozem layer in the steppe regions of Ukraine after this storm decreased by 10–15 cm.

Dust storm in southern Australia

History knows many such examples, and they occur in a variety of regions - in the USA, North Africa (where, as some believe, forests once grew in place of the Sahara), on the Arabian Peninsula, in Central Asia, etc.

Biodiversity

By the beginning of this century, the wording in describing the global importance of forests had changed slightly, although the essence remained the same, and new points were added. For example, the concept of “biodiversity” arose. “Biological diversity,” according to the international convention, “means the variability of living organisms from all sources, including, but not limited to, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this concept includes diversity within species, between species, and ecosystem diversity.”

This convention was adopted by the international community in 1992 as a response to the catastrophic decline in biodiversity on the planet, and above all in tropical forests.

About 70% of all species of living organisms live in forests. Other estimates range from 50 to 90% in tropical rainforests, including 90% of the species of our closest primate relatives. 50 million species of living beings have no other place to live than the rainforest.

Why do we need to preserve biodiversity? There is a purely pragmatic answer to this question. A huge mass of biological species, including small ones (insects, mosses, worms) and especially in tropical forests, have been studied very little or have not yet been described at all by scientists. Genetically, each species is unique, and each species may be the carrier of some yet undiscovered beneficial properties for humanity, for example, food or medicinal properties. Thus, more than 25% of all currently known medicinal products were obtained from tropical plants, for example, a substance such as taxol. How many of them are not yet known to science and how many could be lost forever along with the species that carry them?

Thus, the extinction of any species could result in the irreplaceable loss of an important resource. In addition, each species is of interest to science - it may turn out to be an important link in the evolutionary chain, and its loss will complicate the understanding of evolutionary patterns. That is, any type of living organism is an information resource, perhaps not yet used.

Greenhouse effect

The Earth's forest cover is its main productive force, the energy base of the biosphere, the connecting link of all its components and the most important factor in its sustainability.

It is important to know

Forest is one of the planetary accumulators of living matter, retaining a number of chemical elements and water in the biosphere, actively interacting with the troposphere and determining the level of oxygen and carbon balance. About 90% of the total phytomass of land is concentrated in forests and only 10% in other ecosystems, mosses, grasses, and shrubs. The total leaf surface of the world's forests is almost 4 times greater than the surface of our entire planet.

Hence the high rates of absorption of solar radiation and carbon dioxide, oxygen release, transpiration, and other processes that influence the formation of the natural environment. When green areas are destroyed over a large area, the biological cycle of a number of chemical elements accelerates, including carbon, which passes into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. A greenhouse effect occurs.

Live filter

Forests are capable of actively transforming chemical and atmospheric pollution, especially gaseous ones, Moreover, coniferous plantations, as well as some types of deciduous trees (linden, willow, birch) have the greatest oxidizing ability. In addition, the forest has the ability to absorb individual components of industrial pollution.

The quality of drinking water stored in reservoirs largely depends on the forest cover and the condition of plantings in the catchment area. This is especially important if pesticides and fertilizers are used in large quantities on agricultural lands located near water supplies. Pollutants dissolved in water may be partially retained by forest soils.

There is a well-known example of the city of New York, in the vicinity of which in the mid-1990s, deforestation, development, intensification of agriculture and the development of the road network led to a sharp decline in the quality of drinking water. The city authorities were faced with a choice: build new wastewater treatment plants worth $2–6 billion and spend up to $300 million annually on their maintenance, or invest in improving the protective functions of forests and other ecosystems of water protection zones. The choice was made in favor of the second option, including for economic reasons. Significant funds were used to purchase land along rivers and streams to prevent further development, as well as to pay farmers and forest owners for their use of environmentally responsible management practices in water protection zones. This example demonstrates that proper management of forest ecosystems can be significantly more cost-effective than purely technical solutions.

Forests are dying

It would seem that we have more than enough reasons for the “whole world” to defend every piece of the forest. But the lessons of past centuries and this century have not yet been learned.

Every year the area of ​​green areas decreases by approximately 13 million hectares. Now natural plantings occupy only about 30% of the land area, despite the fact that in the past they were distributed over a much larger area. Before the advent of agriculture and industrial production, the forest area was more than 6 billion hectares. Since prehistoric times, the area under forests has been reduced by about half on average across all continents.

Most of the tracts were cut down to create agricultural land, while another smaller part was occupied by rapidly growing settlements, industrial complexes, roads and other infrastructure. Over the past 40 years, forest area per capita has decreased by more than 50%, from 1.2 hectares to 0.6 hectares per person. Currently, according to FAO (Food and Agronomy Organization of the United Nations), about 3.7 billion hectares are covered by forest.

European forests have suffered the most from intense human activity. In Europe, there are currently virtually no primary (primary) forests left. They have been replaced by fields, gardens and artificial forests.

In China, 3/4 of all arrays were destroyed.

The US has lost 1/3 of all its forests and 85% of its primary forest stands. In particular, in the eastern United States, only a tenth of the plantings that existed there in the 16th–17th centuries have survived.

Only in some places (Siberia, Canada) forests still predominate over treeless areas, and only here there are still large tracts of relatively untouched northern forests.

What to do?

We have already passed half the way to the complete destruction of forests. Will we turn it around? What to do? The most common answer is to plant forests. Many people have heard about the principle “as much as you cut down, plant as much.” This is not entirely true.

• It is necessary to plant forests primarily in those regions where deforestation processes are intense, and in those places where the forest can grow, but for some reason has disappeared and will not recover on its own in the foreseeable future.
• It is necessary not only to plant trees to replace those cut down, but also to cut them down so that the natural potential for forest restoration is preserved. Simply put, in almost every forest that is subject to industrial logging, there is quite viable undergrowth - young trees of the same species that make up the forest canopy. And it is necessary to cut in such a way as not to destroy them and preserve the conditions for their life. This is quite possible with modern technologies. The best way to cut is to preserve the natural dynamics of the forest. In this case, the forest almost does not “notice” that it is being cut down, and a minimum of measures and costs for reforestation are required. Unfortunately, the experience of such logging both in Russia and in the world is small.

The answer to many questions is sustainable forest management, without crises, disasters and other shocks.

Sustainable development (as well as sustainable forest management) is development that achieves the satisfaction of the vital needs of the current generation of people without depriving future generations of this opportunity.

In its work, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) pays a lot of attention to the implementation of sustainable forest management both in Russia and in the world.

But this is a topic for a separate article. Let us only note that at present, sustainable forest management is best met by international systems of voluntary forest certification, which are already quite widespread in Russia.

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In conclusion, let’s try to answer the question: what can I personally do to prevent forests from disappearing? Here's what:

1. Save paper.

2. Under no circumstances allow arson in the forest: first of all, do not set fire to dry grass and do not allow others to do this; If you find grass burning, either try to eliminate it yourself, or, if this is not possible, call the fire department.

3. Buy products from responsibly managed forests. In Russia, these are, first of all, certified products.

4. And finally, just go to the forest more often to learn to understand and love it more.

It's better that we never know what will happen if the forests disappear!

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For reference:

Taxol – antitumor drug; previously it was obtained only from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, but now they have learned how to obtain it synthetically; in addition, it can be obtained by biotechnological methods.

Phytomass – the total mass of living matter of all plants.

See: Ponomarenko S.V., Ponomarenko E.V. How can we stop the environmental degradation of Russian landscapes? M.: SoES, 1994. 24 p.

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Tree names often have very interesting origin stories. They are often formed from the surname or first name of a famous person.

Not only the tree itself is symbolic, but also its parts - branches, trunk, roots, shoots. We invite you on a fascinating journey into the mythological past of the tree.