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What happens after a forest is cut is very important in the regeneration of the forest. In a tropical rain forest, almost all nutrients are found in the plants and trees, not in the ground. When the plants and trees are cut down to plant crops, the most common method used by small farmers is to burn the tree trunks to release the nutrients necessary for growing plants. This process is called "Slash and Burn" agriculture ("BSRSI"). When the rains come, they take away most of the nutrients and leave the soil naked. When the soil has lost most of its fertility, farmers have to look for other areas to plant. They left this area to grow back. The forest will probably grow back slowly because of the lack of nutrients. There are other types of farming, for example, "shade agriculture" ("BSRSI") In this case some of the trees remain uncut to provide the growing crop (e.g. Coffee, Chocolate) with shade. Other types of farming can destroy a lot more the rainforest. Intensive agricultural systems use lots of chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers. Then we have commercial logging and this bring different consequences. Selective logging consists of cutting only a few trees. But they use heavy machinery and destroy the ground and knock down or damage other trees. Clear cutting is the worse method. When all the trees are taken away, the ground is left with almost no resources to grow back. |
The deforestation of tropical rain forests threatens biodiversity. Deforestation may have deep effects on global warming. Because the causes of deforestation are the result of a very complicated group of socio-economic factors the solutions we are looking for in our project have to take in account many different aspects related with politics. |
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