index > Today's Earth, Our Future > 2. Gifts from the forests > The Earth is Turning Brown?!
 
The Earth is Turning Brown?!
Forests are essential for maintaining our lifestyles as well as our lives. However, the forested area is decreasing year by year. Every year, we are losing about 11 million to 17 million hectare of forests in the whole world. This means that a forest as big as a soccer field is disappearing every second. However, while the forested areas are rapidly decreasing in many countries, some other countries have more forested areas now than before. Also, in Japan, the total of its forested area hasn't changed for a long time. Disappearing forests means not only forest products, such as timber, pulp (raw material for paper) and firewood, are disappearing, but animals and plants living there are also dying. In the end, we lose the foundation of the livelihood and local economy of the people who depend heavily on the products from the forests. Why are the forests disappearing? You guessed it. It's because trees are being cut down. But why do people cut trees down? We can think of two reasons: one is because they want to use the trees, and the other is because they want to use the land where the trees are growing. Now, there are trees that are dying even though people do not cut them. For example, there are "dead forests" where we can see a large number of dead trees that are still standing. They have died from acid rain. Acid rain is caused by smoke from factories and toxic substances contained in the exhaust gases from automobiles. Furthermore, if temperatures continue to rise by global warming, more trees are likely to die. In Japan, more and more trees in the woods are toppling over from the wind and snow because the trees are not getting enough sunshine and have become thin and weak. This happens because people don't take care of the trees in the forests anymore. Sadly, our earth is changing her color from green to brown. If we continue destroying forests as we are doing now, not just humans and other numerous creatures, but the earth itself will be in danger. Many people have come to realize that the forests are at risk, and have started to make efforts to protect the forests in many parts of the world. We need to take two types of approaches to protect our forests. The first is to restore the forests to the way they were before. The second is to protect the remaining forested areas so we don't lose any more forests. What can we do to restore the forests to the way they were before? You might say, "Let's plant trees." You are absolutely right! In many parts of the world, people are planting trees. As for ways to protect the remaining forests, we can designate them as national parks or protected areas so that people are not allowed to enter some of these areas or to cut the trees. Japan has conservation forests where you cannot cut the trees without permission. About one third of the forests in Japan are conservation forests.
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   2. Gifts from the forests
   
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