Disappearing Tropical Rainforests Research Paper

Disappearing Tropical Rainforests - Research Paper Example Tropical rainforest, the oldest living ecosystem on Earth developed over 130 million years. Hence, this ecosystem is a habitat for millions of species of plants, animals and microorganisms. In addition, â€Å"tropical rainforests play a significant role in carbon sequestration and climate stabilization†; and this ecosystem protects the Earth from contingencies like flood, drought, and erosion. It also provides an abundant supply of timber, medicines, and food. Another advantage of rainforests is that it assists humans to fight issues like land degradation and desertification. It is interesting to note that these tropical rainforests support people for their livelihood and increase the scope of ecotourism. Causes Mainly, man-made intervention is the major reason leading to the disappearance of tropical rainforests. Huge deposits of precious metals like gold, silver and fossil fuels like natural gas are widely found underneath tropical rainforests worldwide. Industrially developed nations and other emerging countries are increasingly in need of those natural resources so as to enhance their economic growth and to meet growing human needs. In order to extract these natural resources, techniques like mining and drilling are used which in turn require a huge area of lands. Evidently, this situation ultimately results in deforestation. Conversion of tropical rainforests to agricultural land is another cause leading to the destruction of this ecosystem (Global Forest Resources Assessment, 2010). In the context of growing demand for agricultural productions, people increasingly clear areas of rainforests in order to produce crops. This issue is growing to be uncontrollable because national governmen ts or environmental protection agencies cannot suggest a potential alternative to meet the increasing land requirements for agriculture. Studies point to the fact that climate change is another major factor contributing to the destruction of rainforests. It is clear that human-made emissions of greenhouse gases lead to global warming which in turn increase the rate of climate change.