Forests cover approximately 31% of the total land surface on planet earth, in which Tropical forests offer habitat to over 50% of all land based animals and plant species globally. In between 2000 and 2012 the planet lost over 568 million acres of forest to deforestation and in 2018 approximately 9 million acres of virgin tropical forest fell to deforestation. According to researchers the Amazon Rainforest loses an average of 1.32 acres of its areas Per Minute to deforestation.
Forests are an important source of oxygen and in turn reduce carbon dioxide as they rely on it for survival, while we have superintended such facts letting our thirst for advancement lead to our doom. According to the world deforestation statistics 2021, a forests the size of football pitch is lost every second. Although deforestation rates halved in between 2010 and 2022, the tropical forests averaging at 14, 800 square miles are lost every year.
In Africa, deforestation has been as a result of illegal logging and human encroachment in forests losing approximately 40, 000 square kilometers of forest per year. Deforestation in Africa is happening 4 Times faster than it is happening globally. Africa host 17% of the world’s forests including the second largest tropical forest in the world, that is the Congo Basin Tropical Forest. This is about 528 trillion hectares of natural forests as reported by FAO’s FORIS 2021. In the Sub Saharan Africa, 65% of the people rely on forests for food and fuel.
In Kenya encroachment of forests and illegal logging in search of arable land, human populace settlements, charcoal and agricultural purposes has aggravated deforestation. According to KFS 2019, Kenya is still far from its 10% tree cover as it stands. The encroachment of the Mau Forest and the Mount Elgon forest for human settlement and agricultural production has affected the sources over 12 rivers in the country
Forests have existed throughout history of man through Creation, the evolution of humankind and the accelerated industrialization by humankind. This large pillar of diversity and climate has faced major threat with each passing epoch as more of it is lost to human encroachment. In search of arable lands, infrastructural development, human settlements and setting up of industrial parks have seen to it that we lose forests each and every day.
We have had great conventions and declarations to fight the loss of forests from the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) on Climate Action to individual plans for forest conservation. We have had great Role Models like the Late Wangari Maathai who planted over 30 million trees in her life time and won the Nobel Peace Prize for Environmental Conservation. Learning from her is the greatest gift that nature could receive, advancement is inevitable, imminent and is here to stay but if we kill our forests we might never get to see these future plans we are pursuing.
This is a clarion call to all of us as individuals, as a community, as environmentalists and developers, conservation and protection of forests is an important aspect in the advancement of mankind, if for every tree lost there is a percentage of carbon emission increased, a soil erosion occurrence, we will have lost the diamond chasing the gold. Do not be Mean Go Green. Save a Tree, Plant a Tree, be a Planet Warrior, the future is in conservation and protection of these natural treasures, this safeguards our climate, our biodiversity, and this is the GO GREEN after all the earth can provide for all our NEEDS but it cannot satisfy everyone’s GREED.
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