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Question2: Outline the major causes of deforestation and the effects this has on the environment.
Main Body
There are many factors cause deforestation which can be divided into two parts-climatic variations and human activities, while the factors from human activities take the most part. According to Middleton (2008), different countries and regions have different major causes of deforestation which may change over time. To start with, agriculture use is one of the major factors. Forests and woodlands are cut down with the purpose to develop crops or cattle ranching, both of which can earn money especially for tropical countries. For example, in pre-agriculture time Viet Nam was a country almost entirely covered in forest. During the second half of 20 century Viet Nam lost more than 80% of its original forest area for the purpose of agriculture. Later during the French colonial period, large areas in the south were cleared for banana, coffee and rubber plantations, however, after the Viet Nam War and till now, still great areas have been destroyed for agriculture use. (Example taken from Middleton, 2008, page 60) The second important factor cause deforestation is construction use. People urge to get access to forest, they cut down a lot of trees, no matter by logging companies or as a national development scheme, they do harm to forest seriously. (Middleton, 2008, page 59, 71) In addition, the cause of deforestation also include socio-economic factor, such as poverty, low agriculture productivity and an unequal distribution of land, and rapid population increase especially in tropics countries is also included. Socio-economic factor often combined with another factor, that is government supported resettlement. According to Seitz (2008), in 1970s, the Brazil government began a large colonization project in the Amazon basin with the purpose of moving people from the poverty-ridden northeastern section of the...