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forest decline — English
The degradation and ultimate destruction of natural forests or cultivated plantations by a number of natural causes, but largely by human activities. Natural climate changes or a disease or pest or some animals might destroy forests. Throughout human history we have witnessed a few such cases. Long, unusually cold or warm periods have destroyed a few historically recorded forested areas in North America and Europe. Fungi and weevils have destroyed sections of large needle-leaved forests over the last three decades, but we now have chemicals and biological controls to stem these declines. The savannah forests in Tsavo, Kenya, were destroyed by elephant overpopulation together with long term drought, but then elephants too died, and now nature is recovering and a new balance has been established. Lava flows and wildfires have done great harm to certain sections of forests, but they are fast recovering. Injudicious logging of hardwood trees in the Amazon basin, the Congo basin and South East Asia cause irreparable forest damage. The natural forests in Tasmania and Madagascar have also been seriously damaged by logging. In North America and Western Europe vast parts of pine and spur forests have died back as a result of industrial air pollution and acid rain (see “acid rain “ and “air pollution”). Seen globally, forests have declined and shrank as a result of human activities and it is an environmental issue of great concern since forests are our “oxygen factories”.
