Forests

Nature’s Gift

Radhakrishnan K C, Neyveli, India

kcrkrishnan@gmail.com
 What Forests offers….
 Forests cover 31% of total land area
 The livelihoods of 1.6 billion people
depend on forests
 Forests provide a home to more than 300
million people worldwide
 The total global trade in forest products
was valued at around $379 billion in 2005
 Forests are home to 80% of terrestrial
biodiversity
 Forests – Supplier of Oxygen

 Forests absorb CO2 and give Oxygen

 Forests – Resources
Forest provides resources like
 timber
 fuel
 rubber
 paper medicinal plants
 Sustain the quality and availability
of freshwater supplies.
 Ever Green Forests

 Forests give fresh water supply

 Forests absorb the rains and release water slowly
 Plays important role in regulating the flow of rivers
 Forests - Benefits
Climate change Mitigation
 Stores carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
 Locks it into their biomass

Biodiversity
 Biologically diverse ecosystems on land, forests
 Home to more than half of terrestrial species, from the
great apes to the smallest of creatures.
 Forests - Benefits
Economics and Livelihoods

 Forests provide homes, security and

livelihoods for 60 million Indigenous peoples

Products & Biodiversity

 In developing countries 80% of total energy for

people and industry derives from forests as
fuel wood and charcoal
 Enables development of new medicines;
progress in healthcare and science.
 Trees in urban Areas
 Reduces air conditioning needs up to 30% by shading the buildings
 Removes air pollutants like SO2, NOx
 Removes CO2,, generates oxygen
 up to 60% reduction in particulate matter

 Prevents soil erosion

 Slows water run-offs and ensure ground
water supplies
 People linger and shop longer along tree-
lined streets
 Deforestation and
Degradation of forests
 Main cause - Human activities
We have:
 Cleared much of the original forest
 Drained half of the world’s wetlands
 Emitted enough heat-trapping gases to
keep our planet warming for centuries to
come
 Our activities make species extinctions
occur at up to 1000 times the natural rate
Main cause - Human activities
 Tigers are killed for their skin
 Elephants are pouched for their tusks
 Forests are set on fire to clear the vegetation
 Trees are cut indiscriminately for wood
 Forests have traditionally been considered
unproductive land and destruction considered as
development

CARD-NLC
 ‘Forests - lungs of the earth’.
 Deforestation and forest degradation account for
nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions
 Commercial logging, fires, and gathering wood
for fuel
 Insects and pests also cause considerable forest
degradation
 36 million acres of natural forest are lost each
year
 Deforestation

Indiscriminate felling of trees

 Forest Fires

 Natural and man made

 Let us
Protect & Preserve
our Forests

CARD-NLC
The earth provides enough to
satisfy every man's needs,
but not every man's greed.

Mahatma Gandhi