Forests are among the world’s most valuable resources, both in a narrowly economic sense and in a broader, ecological sense. Besides yielding over 5,000 commercial products that contribute some 2 percent to the world’s total economic production, forests provide recreation, reduce flooding, and prevent soil erosion that clogs rivers with silt. However, oxygen-renewing capacity of forests, the other about the role of forests in preserving biodiversity—merit special scrutiny.
Some consider the tropical rain forests of the Brazilian Amazon region “the lungs of the earth,” claiming that the foliage absorbs so much carbon dioxide and produces so much oxygen that the atmosphere would be depleted of the latter if these forests ceased to exist. But this belief is largely a myth. the trees produced. In net terms, therefore, forests neither produce nor consume oxygen.
Another claim made is that the preservation of biodiversity, the globe’s profusion of plant and animal species, requires a stricter policy to conserve forest, especially tropical rain forest. For one thing, many scientists believe that some tropical rain-forest plant species yet to be discovered may contain agents with unique disease-fighting properties. These diversity—or, at least, that to do so would be a noninstrumental, that is, an intrinsic, good.
Actually, careful review of official statistics suggests that tropical deforestation is not occurring as fast as has often been claimed. Some existing forests, however, do consist of commercial plantations, of which some people are highly critical. Such plantations tend to contain significantly fewer plant and animal species than natural forest. However, since of official data shows that plantations make up just 3 percent of the world’s forest area.
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