Clear cutting, or clear felling, is a logging practice which involves completely clearing an area of trees, regardless of their size and usability. Remaining scrub and brush are usually burnt in large burn piles that can cast a smoky haze over the area for several days. A clear cut area may be relatively small, or may span for miles, and is often clearly visible through the air, along with the scars of logging roads cut to access it. The abrupt removal of trees can have a serious environmental impact on the surrounding area.
In the past thirty years, people have cleared over half of the world’s forests.
Only Canada, Russia and Brazil have most of their original forests left. Such devastation has happened over these few years as a result of clear cut logging being practiced all around the world. First, loggers allow no time for re-forestation and the trees are being cut down faster than they can grow. This is a big problem. Second, clear cutting speeds up soil erosion and increases the risk of landslides, which are mostly caused from road building and use. Lastly, animals’ habitats are being destroyed, which is forcing them to move and adapt to our way of living.
As clear cutting continues, there are more and more forests that are becoming scarce. There are so many loggers, that they are rapidly destroying forests and they have no time for reforestation. If loggers continue to chop down trees and destroy forests so quickly, researchers also have less and less time to examine and study different plants in efforts to find new remedies and medicines that certain hospital organizations could really use for research. The results of clear cutting are not only felt in the surrounding area. Clear cutting also has an impact on the quality of the atmosphere, beginning when the trees are cut down, due to the decrease in oxygen production. Trees help to filter pollutants from the air, and are also an important part of the carbon cycle. Removing trees has a direct...