Why Rainforest Deforestation Has To Stop

Rain forest deforestation is as old as civilization. Every time cities have needed more fuel and more space, they just cut down a piece of forest. This has had serious consequences in the past. The Middle East and the Sahara Desert were once heavily forested areas. They became desert by the hand of man. However, until recently, deforestation only had local impacts, it was never a global problem.

Civilization has expanded to the point where there is now no more room left on this planet to grow. There are no new continents to go and discover. Our penchant for growth means we are targeting the last remaining rainforests for timber and space for more farmland.

This is a serious problem for the future of the terrestrial biosphere and the integrity of the ecosystems that inhabit it. If we continue to destroy the last remaining rainforests, the water cycle will be disrupted, farmland will become unproductive, and the land will turn into eroded desert.

The role of the rainforest

Rain forests act as a water filter. They prevent groundwater from becoming too salty by keeping salts deep in the ground. When the rain forest is razed, the salts rise to the surface. This makes the water undrinkable and prevents crops from growing in the fields.

Many logging companies that cut down old-growth forests justify their actions by claiming that replanting new trees mitigates the damage. But reseeded saplings cannot replace a rainforest. They cannot perform the same functions. They have less leaf surface area than rainforest trees, and because they lack diversity, they are extremely vulnerable to infection.

A deep ecological attitude towards tropical forests

Conventional ecological thinking would argue that we must save rainforests because they are crucial to human survival. That’s true. But deep ecological thinking would go further to say that these are not our forests in the first place.

Humans do not own the world or the forests. It is not our prerogative to decide what their fate is. Tropical rainforests are home to millions of species of plants and animals. They deserve the right to flourish and nothing gives us the right to take it away from them.

Deforestation of the rainforest has to stop for the good of the biosphere and so that humans can stop destroying creation and take their place as a functioning member of the community of life.