Deforestation, as we all know, is very bad for the environment, but needed. Since people need paper to write on, firewood, and of course for building, deforestation is something that is very useful, but that doesn’t make it better. It doesn’t only have a big impact on animals, also on us, because of our need for oxygen. Trees are maybe the only way to keep the amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen balanced, and they give us more time to fix our problems. Until electric cars will be made, clean energy will be used, and the humans stop releasing so much carbon dioxide, the trees are a huge need.

Deforestation leads to many disasters, and the most dramatic is the impact on animals. The forests are habitats for millions of animals, and if we leave them without homes, it causes them to starve and die. 80% of the animal population lives in forests, and many can’t survive the deforestation that destroys their habitats. The trees also block the rays coming from the sun, as a big blanket. When taking this protection away, plants and animals will be harmed, and the soil will not be as fertile anymore, without the shade from the trees. With the sun shining directly on it, the soil will become very dry (“Deforestation and Its Effects on our Planet”). Protected species might still starve, not because of hunters, but because of the loss of habitat. Forest fires are a big problem too. Thousands of trees can get burned, whether caused by man or nature, and they all release huge clouds of carbon dioxide. We can help this by not making campfires in forests, stop throwing cigarettes on the ground, and don’t barbeque near the woods! Think, people!

Trees are very important to keep the earth balanced. They take in carbon dioxide from the millions of factories, the burning coal, oil, and natural gas, and of course our breathing, and release oxygen. This is the opposite of what humans and animals do, breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide. We need to keep the number of animals and the amount of nature balanced, and that’s not going to happen like this. Every year, the size of Wales in trees is being cut down, with as main driver agriculture. (Bryson education) Farmers use slash and burn farming, which includes cutting down parts of a forest and then growing crops in that spot. Because of the trees’ ashes, the soil is very fertile and good for farming, and the free space is also used for livestock. This should stop, because it releases a lot of carbon dioxide.

People might wonder what would happen if we could not have that farmland anymore, and BBC published a solution to it called “city-farming”. Rooftops of houses can be used as farmland, above ground-planting beds, empty lots, and vertical farms, that occupy abandoned warehouses and tall buildings (“Future - Can city farms feed a hungry world?”). This will help the need of deforestation decrease, because from the 16 million square km of forest Earth had before the humans, only 6 million square km is left. Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million square km were cut down, about the size of half Europe (“Deforestation”). The solution to this is to just cut down parts of the forests, not whole chunks of forest that cover Hundreds of square km’s. Instead, just take forest the size of like 50 m square, and most importantly, for every tree you cut, plant a new one.

In the last 40 years, world consumption of paper has grown 400%. 35% of all the trees cut down is used for paper (“Deforestation”). Recycling is the best solution for this. What happens to all the paper that is used? Do people eat it or something? No, of course not! The paper just gets thrown in the trashcan, instead of the recycling bin. If we recycle way more paper, 35% of trees that are cut down don’t have to be cut down! For every ton of paper recycled, 2 tons of wood are saved (“Paper Recycling”). I don’t understand, why does everyone still use paper when they’ve got laptops and computers? 40 years ago, computers sucked, and still we used 4 times less paper. Today, computers and laptops are taking over, and still we use paper! We can just do everything online, without using paper at all, saving millions of trees from being cut.

In other words, there are many things that can help. Even the smallest things, like writing on the back of a used paper, can make the difference, but only when millions of us do it.