Adverse Effects on Resources by Land and Water

After reading this article you will learn about the adverse effects on resources by land and water.

Important and needful resources have taken a great and a grave beating in the hands of man’s greed for growth. The effects on the land, water and other important resources are right in front of us and the effects on these are rather deplorable and saddening, at the same time brings about a sense of anguish and uncertainty on the lives of our future generations.

The worst effects are found on land and water, all over the world the adverse effects of depletion can be seen. In Britain farmers have pulled up nearly 200,000 kms. Of hedgerows-enough to go five times round the equator and almost all the old flower rich meadows and heathlands have disappeared under the ploughs. In the poorer parts of the world the spread of agriculture has had more devastating implications.

It usually involves the invasion of woodland and scrub by browsing animals such as goats, the cutting and burning of wood for fuel, and the haphazard clearance of forests for crops. Too often the scrub and trees are removed without precautions of terracing and drainage channels, and the exposed soil is eroded by wind and rain. Erosion now effects two thirds of the worlds nations. In many areas land has changed from forest to a desert within a single generation.

In the United States such a catastrophe was only halted in the Midwest, where new settlers had reduced the land to a “dust-bowl”, by the Emergency soil conservation act of 1935. Even as late as 1985, a government report warned that two-thirds of the countries tree cover has been destroyed and that more than half the agricultural land needed treatment for erosion.

It is not surprising, then, that in the so called third world, the population pressures are so great, the desert is expanding unchecked. Around the Sahara desert of Africa a new desert is being created at a rate of 170 hectares every hour.

The forests and the wilderness are very important sources of nature which are now being harmed and exploited to the worst extent possible, again as a consequence of man’s greed.

The impact or the exploitation of these forests not only affect the trees and the environment, but also the number of wild species, to which these forests act as a habitat. Although rain forests cover only 7% of the earths surface, they are by far the most productive region for wildlife.

The forests of New Caledonia, in the South Pacific, for instance, cover about 18000 sq. kms. Yet they contain 3000 species of plants, most of which are endemic — that is they are found nowhere else in the world. And these forests are soon becoming extinct due to deforestation, thereby depriving us of these wonderful gifts of nature.

So fierce is the pressure for timber, and land for small-scale farming that, unless current policies are changed, the New Caledonian rain forests may all be chopped by the year 2009. We know from satellite pictures that right across the tropics the precious rain forests — with all the immense variety of insects, birds and animal life they support — are being cleared at an annual rate of over 76,000 sq. kms.

That means that every single year a whole size of Scotland or the state of South Carolina disappears in the forest cover. Such appalling destruction will add greatly to the number of extinctions. Many biologists accept that, without drastic measures the earth may loose between a quarter and a third of all its species of plant and animal life by the year 2500.

The other great wilderness, now in danger are Arctic and Antarctic regions around the earth’s poles. These too are home to several types of precious flora and fauna. These regions are exploited not because of the pressures of poverty but by the lure of wealth.

The Antarctic has its vast fisheries and its krill- a small shrimp like organism which may one day be exploited as a major source of protein, but which is also the staple diet of five of the worlds rarest whales.

The Arctic from Alaska through Northern Canada and on across Siberia, has some of the worlds largest deposits of iron, coal, lead, copper, zinc, gold, wolfram, uranium, diamonds and phosphates, and huge untapped reserves of oil and natural gas.

The North polar regions have been described as a palace of crystal glass filled with treasure, a palace that could easily be shattered once that treasure is removed. What will happen to the clean Arctic oceans, for instance, when at the end of the 20th century the oil companies have firmly established themselves there and giant natural gas tankers are ploughing day after day through the winter ice of the North West Passage around northern Canada?

This situation that exists as of today, even though it might seem as the worst case scenario, the anguishing fact is that this is not, for years man has been exploiting these resources, and if not now, most certainly the future generations are going to face the consequences of these deeds and this most certainly is not a forth coming thought.