Deforestation is a worse reality of the present times. Despite knowing the fact how important trees and forests are for the mankind, human beings are still continuing to cut down trees and clearing the forest land for building and construction. Publically, we often hear speeches on deforestation given by the leaders in order to spread awareness and raise the conscientious of people.
But how often do we carefully lend them our ears and mend our ways? May be seldom! But it’s time now to take concrete actions towards it and in fact our government should impose strict penalty and punishment for cutting down trees and clearing away the forest land. Moreover, you can prepare either long speeches on deforestation or short speeches on deforestation in order to influence people through the power of your words. For any help, you can take a cue or draw reference from our speeches and write an impactful description.
Good Morning Students – Hope you are doing well!
Today, I am going to address a very pertinent topic linked with global warming, i.e. Deforestation. Deforestation is a grim reality of the present times. It is an act of cutting down trees and clearing away forest lands and not replanting them elsewhere. The process of deforestation usually takes place when a piece of land is converted into ranches, farms or big construction houses. Other than this, deforestation also occurs because of the need for fuel or wood which leads to the destruction of trees. When deforestation happens, not only trees are destroyed, but animals are also rendered homeless as their natural habitat, i.e. forest is destroyed by man. It also affects our climate and lead to global warming.
There are many reasons behind deforestation, let’s know some of them:
Deforestation, as mentioned above, is the act of cutting down trees. When population grows, people start clearing away forest land to build their homes and factories. Besides, land is also used for farming purposes. The wood in turn is used as lumber in the construction of buildings and apartments and the trees are burned as firewood. Forests are also destroyed in order to make cities grow bigger and impressive, which means the construction of pavement and roads. Other reasons are:
Huge fire takes place in forests which result in their massive destruction.
Slash and burn agriculture is usually defined as Jhuming cultivation. This process involves cutting down of trees from the forests by the farmers in order to put them to fire. The ash in turn is used in the form of fertilizer and land is used for farming purposes. After cultivation, the land is left bare for many years so that it can be recovered for further usage. The farmers then shift to other piece of land and repeat the entire process. In technical terms, it is defined as shifting cultivation.
For hydroelectric projects, reservoirs and man-made dams forest areas are submerged and all plants and animals are killed, which is grossly an inhuman act.
The population of livestock is nearly 500 million in our country; however the area for grazing is just about 13 million hectares. One hectare of land is able to support the demand of six livestock. The remaining area which is used for grazing leads to the destruction of seedlings and soil compaction. The latter affects the water holding ability and enhances run off. Eventually, a huge land of forest gets destroyed.
Whatever the reason may be, deforestation heavily impacts our environment and disturbs its ecological balance. Global warming is increased and pollution level also starts taking a heavy toll on our health because when there will be no trees to trap harmful gases and dusts, it is bound to affect the living beings on earth. So prevent people around from cutting down trees and rather encourage them to plant more and more trees for saving the environment.
Thank You!
Respected Principal, Vice Principal, Teachers and My Dear Students – Warm Greetings to all of you!
I, Smriti Kaushik from Class-XII (B), heartily welcome everyone to this “Grow More Trees” Campaign. Before I begin with my speech on the topic called Deforestation, I would like to thank our hon’ble principle, vice principle and teachers for running this campaign and lending all their support for its successful execution. I also would like to thank my fellow students for remaining so pro-active and cooperative all the time.
Since our campaign is about growing more trees and preserving our environment, as an organizer of this campaign, I considered it extremely important to address the topic called deforestation. Deforestation, as well all know, is about clearing away trees and forest land which is immensely disastrous for our environment. It would completely be a futile exercise if we go on growing trees on the one hand and cutting them down on the other. To make this campaign successful, we first need to put a stop on such a heinous activity and prevent men from destroying our nature.
Quite often, many trees are being cut down and forests are destroyed for man’s selfish interests. But do we even realize how important forests are for all of us? Let’s understand in what way forests are beneficial for us:
Forests are often preserved because they provide protection against natural calamities. When forest areas are destroyed, the soil also gets spoiled and this process is called soil erosion. Trees also play an important role in carbon sequestration. When the trees get rotten or burnt, the carbon present in them goes back to the atmosphere in the gaseous form, i.e. carbon dioxide form. As we all know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the process of deforestation leads to global warming. Sadly, it’s tropical deforestation which contributes nearly 20% towards the emission of world greenhouse gases.
If we want to contribute to our environment and preserve it for our next generation, then it will require collective efforts. Of course, any unlawful or unethical activity has to be prevented from taking place, which means no cutting down of trees and clearing of forest lands. Trees help sustain living beings on this earth, we not only get vegetables, fruits, herbs and medicinal extract from plants and trees, but also get purified air and oxygen to breathe which is of utmost importance for human survival.
So let’s take a pledge in this campaign that we will plant more and more trees in our living surrounding and help in the preservation of our natural wealth as well. I also invite suggestions from everyone present here to share their thoughts on the same and make this campaign a success.
Thank You!
To my respected Class Teacher and dear Friends – Warm Greetings to all of you!!
I am extremely glad that I am being assigned the topic called Deforestation to talk about. I am a lover of nature and love to be surrounded with rivers and trees. So when I see men assaulting nature, destroying trees and polluting rivers, I feel extremely annoyed and want to urge our government to take strict measures against such people who harm nature for their own selfish interests.
Thus, deforestation means shrinking of a forest land in terms of area. You would be surprised to know that the forest cover land of 7,000 million hectares has faced a steep decline globally and come down to 2,400 million hectares of land in the year 2000. It is calculated that nearly 40% of the forest land cover has been lost in the tropical region in comparison to about 1% loss in the temperate regions.
In our country, at the dawn of the 20th century, forest cover area was reported to be 30% of the entire land. However, when the century came to an end, it declined to about 19.4% whereas India’s National Forest Policy (1968) has advised 67% forest covers for the hilly areas and 33% for the plain areas.
Now, let’s understand how deforestation affects our environment:
Desertification as the term mentioned above is not similar deforestation, so let’s understand the difference between the two:
Thus, when so much worse happens to our environment due to deforestation, our government should impose a complete ban on this exercise and rather spread awareness amongst the people to grow more trees. Even though so much has been propagated and done in the past, the movements like the very famous Chipko Movement, Silent Valley Movement and Tehri Dam Development, to name a few have spread greater awareness amongst the masses and led to the preservation of forests and of course our nature.
But this is not the end as our young generation of today has to take charge of the things from there and raise the conscience of people against killing trees and forests.
Thank You!
Dear Friends – Warm Greetings to all of you!
Thank you for gathering here and putting your best of efforts towards our drive for “Save Trees”. It goes without saying that trees are a life giving source for all the living species yet man is bent on destroying that very source which is a reason behind our existence on earth. Deforestation should not be encouraged at any level by our government because the process of cutting down trees or burning of forest trees and woodland is not a sound act.
This activity smacks of man’s great selfish interest whereby he can do anything to make his life comfortable and easy going. It is true that with the ever growing population the present residential places are not enough and therefore usurpation of forest land takes place. Other than this, slow growing trees have been replaced with fast growing plants and woods, which implies that the conversion of the valuable eco-system of the forests into comparatively less valuable bio-diverse ecosystems, like plantations, cropland and pasture as well as clearing away of rainforest trees.
There are two chief issues related to deforestation. Firstly, trees as we all know absorb CO2 thereby reducing the amount of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. Carbon is a chief contributing factor towards global warming and by keeping a check on the emission of such gases can help to slowdown and even prevent the greenhouse effect from happening.
The other concern is that trees are often cut off and set on fire. The wood derived from the trees is also thrown away and is not used for any constructive purpose. Moreover, wood burning emits carbon into the atmosphere and other dangerous greenhouse gases even then cutting down on the number of trees, which would have helped to remove these harmful gases from the atmosphere is not forbidden. Tropical deforestation also leads to global warming and contributes to almost 20% of all the greenhouse gases and leaves a significant impact on the global marketplace.
Following are the reasons why deforestation takes place: Overpopulation, urbanization, globalization and climate. Trees are regularly destroyed to clear the land for construction and farming purposes. Trees are then used as firewood.
In fact, globalization in several other countries has caused deforestation because of the growing need of factories and industries which in turn led to the emission of carbon dioxide; thus greatly affecting our living environment and of course the living species. China and India are big examples of this phenomenon. China is a big market which manufactures and supplies many products across the globe.
However, I would like to bring home the point that trees should always be preserved and never cut down because they not only provide us with various food products as well as medicinal substances, but also play a crucial role in absorbing green house gases such as carbon dioxide. It is because the number of trees is declining the presence of green house gases in our atmosphere is also increasing, thereby increasing the temperature of our earth. Another worst impact on our environment of deforestation is the increasing number of droughts and floods. When forests are cleared, the normal flow of water is disrupted thereby leading to the situation of abnormal droughts and floods.
Therefore, we must stop this assault on nature and strictly prohibit others also not to do so; the negligence of which must be followed by some punishment. This is all I have to say!
Thank You!
Related information: