Human+Impact+of+Logging

Forests are incredible. Just imagine the design brief for a tree - create something that makes oxygen, absorbs carbon, fixes nitrogen, distils water, stores solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates micro climates, changes colours with the season and self replicates. Brilliant! Now let’s chop them down and turn them into dunny paper. Genius!
 * ‍‍‍Introduction**

Logging is when people cut down trees. People cutting down too many trees and its harming the envroment. Deforestation, or the clearing of the worlds forests is one of the main causes of climate change. Trees absorb the greenhouse gasses that human produce, so if we dont have enough trees or forests, the green house gasses go straight into the air without being absorbed. We will show you all about it below. ‍‍‍

**Why Are Forests Being Destroyed?**

‍‍‍‍Forest are being destroyed because they clear the land for crops to grow ‍‍‍‍and to graze animals such as sheep.
Also they cut down trees for wood, cardboard and paper.

Forests in Australia

* Between 1990 and 2000, Australia lost an average of 325,900 hectares of forest per year. (1) As of April 2009, around 8% of pre European settlement forest remains in original condition in Australia. About 5.5% of this is protected. (2)

* Australia has lost 25% rainforest, 45% of open forest, 32% woodland forest and 30% of mallee forest in 200 years. (3)

* Australia has the fifth highest rate of land clearing in the world. We clear more bush each year than poverty-stricken countries like Burma, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and the Congo. (4)

* Australia clears land at the massive rate of over half a million hectares a year. (5)

* Animals threatened by deforestation in Australia: Long-footed potoroo, Leadbeater’s possum, Tiger quoll, Yellow-bellied glider, Glossy black-cockatoo, Sooty owl, Regent honeyeater, and the Spotted tree frog.

* 85% of all land clearing in Australia happens in Queensland. Victoria has lost more native vegetation than any other state, and Tasmania has the highest clearing rate in proportion to the State’s total land area. (6)

* For every tree planted, 100 are bulldozed! (7)

* Old growth forests are particularly precious forests that are rich in biodiversity and that support unique and precious ecological functions. When these forests are logged they may take up to 1000 years to return to their original state, while the hollows in gum trees that support breeding animals and birds can take more than 100 years to form. The current practice of total removal of all trees in old growth forests simply moves more species closer to extinction.

* Old growth forests also provide the most valuable carbon sinks in Australia. They can store up to 640 tonnes of carbon for every acre. This is one of the highest rates in the world. The continued logging of our old-growth forests represents 20% of Australia’s total pollution emissions. (8)

**What is the impact on Animals and their habitats?** Too many loggers are destroying animals habitats such as: Birds Koalas Insects And other Animals.... The Logging Industry are cutting the trees and destroying animals homes and they also are digging under ground to get the tree out of the ground so they are destroying insects homes and the ground. = = = =  **Impact on the Environment:**   **The cause of Logging are because people are cutting down trees to make paper and wood out of it. People are cutting too many trees ans soon anough ‍‍there will be no trees then we wont be able to breath ‍‍ because trees give us air to breath. Forest are supply plants material to make into medicines,they supply oxygen for us to breath,and they are home to an enormous variety of animals and plants.** = =



Skwirk

This is what is happening to the trees in bush land, forest, and in rainforest. Loggers are people that cut down trees they use chainsaws and bulldozes. Many companies are destroying the forest so they can get room to put there buildings and roads. Farmers also use the land for them to put their crops. A bush land that is natural to the Earth is being harmed from Logging just like forests and rain forests.

**Logging provides:**
 * Wood to make into paper products and cardboard.
 * Fuel for cooking and heating.
 * Timber for building materials and making furniture.[[image:stage3environmentmatters/Forest.jpg width="269" height="200" align="right"]]

** Places are being harmed such as: **

 * Rain Forrests
 * Bush land
 * Forest
 * Jungles

**Facts**
 * Every year about 17 million of forest and woodland are destroyed by human activities
 * Forests and woodlands are one of the Earth's greatest natural resources.
 * Australian Forest produce 25.7 million cubic metres of wood each year.
 * The Timber Industry is one of Australia's largest resource Industry
 * About 70% of Australias forest has been cleared.

**We Can Start Helping by...**
 * We can all start planting some more trees so that we can still build houses and breath good air.
 * We can all have a week of no Logging.
 * We can plant some trees in our back yard.
 * We can all start helping by not using so much paper we can also recycle and try not to waste paper or carboard
 * If we all do these our Rainforest and Forest will look like this (look at the picture below)



What can you do?

* Reuse sheets of paper that have been used on one side for: drawing paper for young children; rough drafts of stories, letters, etc; student study; shopping lists; telephone messages; games. Recycle all paper that can’t be reused.

* Put up a NO JUNK MAIL notice on your mailbox. * Print and photocopy on both sides of the paper.

Recycle all paper that can’t be reused.

* Buy and use recycled office paper, preferably the unbleached variety.

* Proof read all your work on the computer before printing to reduce wastage of paper.

* Use e-mail whenever possible.

* Reuse envelopes by sticking a label over the old address. This will save money as well as reduce the amount of envelopes that would be thrown away.

* Buy FSC wood products such as timber, hardboard, charcoal and paper. The Forest Stewardship Council logo (FSC) ensures that the forest recovers after timber extraction.

* Reduce use of Palm Oil. Clearing forests to grow the palms needed to produce palm oil is causing deforestation on an unimaginable scale. Palm oils are the cheapest and least healthy vegetable oils and are used in lots of processed food, biscuits, peanut butter, as well as soap. Anything labelled ‘vegetable oil’ will be oil from palm oil plantations. Try and buy products that use sunflower or olive oil where you can.

* Buy rain forest-friendly coffee. This generates cash while saving the forest canopy. Most coffee brands use new varieties that have been bred to grow in the full sunlight where they give higher yields but are responsible for forest destruction.

Animation

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Made by Michelle, Jonathan, Cormac and John Year 5 2012 STOP LOGGING PLEASE!!!!