Clearcutting can destroy an area’s ecological integrity in a number of ways, including: the destruction of buffer zones which reduce the severity of flooding by absorbing and holding water ; the immediate removal of forest canopy, which destroys the habitat for many rainforest-dependent insects and bacteria; the removal ...
Is clear cutting good?
Clearcutting increases the biological diversity of the forest , which enhances the habitat for a variety of wildlife. Some species of wildlife actually thrive better in brushy thickets of seedlings and small saplings.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of clear cutting?
- Pro: Financial Reasons. Clearcutting advocates argue that the method is the most efficient for both harvesting and replanting trees. ...
- Con: Effects on Plant and Wildlife. ...
- Pro: Increased Water Flow. ...
- Con: Loss of Recreation Land. ...
- Pro: Increased Farmland.
How does clear cutting affect human health?
But deforestation is having another worrisome effect: an increase in the spread of life-threatening diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. For a host of ecological reasons, the loss of forest can act as an incubator for insect-borne and other infectious diseases that afflict humans.
How does clear cutting affect water quality?
Clearcutting increases erosion, leading to sedimentation, nutrient-loading, and decreased storage capacity . Studies of logging methods and amount of bare ground suggests that, per unit of ground, the potential for stream channel effects from surface soil erosion is greater on clearcuts.
Who does clear cutting negatively impact?
Clearcutting disturbs soils, wetlands , and peatlands, releasing their vast carbon stores, and diminishes the boreal forest’s ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. As such, it is often an ecologically harmful form of logging.
Why is selective cutting better than clear cutting?
Selective Cutting as a Tool of Sustainable Forestry
Allows more light to penetrate the upper story of growth . The remaining tree growth will increase dramatically. Allows trees that are shade intolerant to receive more light. Encourages remaining trees to naturally seed open areas.
What is an alternative to clear cutting?
As an alternative to clearcutting, selection management is the method of cutting only individual or small groups of trees in a healthy natural forest at periodic intervals, such as every ten years.
Does clear cutting cause flooding?
Deforestation causes increases in erosion and flooding . ... Tree root systems hold the soil together to slow the rate of flooding and reduce erosion. Trees themselves also absorb water during the rainy season. When the trees are removed from the environment, the rainy season can have devastating effects.
Why is clear cutting used?
Clearcutting is used as a method of regenerating or rejuvenating certain kinds of trees that cannot tolerate shade .
Why is clear cutting so bad?
Clearcutting may lead to increased stream flow during storms, loss of habitat and species diversity , opportunities for invasive and weedy species, and negative impacts on scenery, specifically, a growth of contempt by those familiar with the area for the wooded, planet aftermaths, as well as a decrease in property ...
What are the 5 effects of deforestation?
The loss of trees and other vegetation can cause climate change, desertification, soil erosion, fewer crops, flooding, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere , and a host of problems for indigenous people.
Why is clear cutting not sustainable?
The act of clear cutting is not only damaging to the structure and function of the forest , but in particularly erosion-prone areas the loss of root structures significantly affects water quality, and leads to the loss and fragmentation of nutrient rich soil, creating a lack of regenerative biomass and reduces primary ...
How does clear cutting affect animals?
Wild animals, insects and plants are killed by large clear cuts . After the trees are gone, groundcover plants wither in the sun and parched soils. ... Soil animals, bacteria and fungi, vital to tree growth and health, overheat, shrivel and die.
What is the process of clear cutting?
Clear-cutting is a method of harvesting and regenerating trees in which all trees are cleared from a site and a new, even-age stand of timber is grown . ... Many conservation and citizen groups object to clear-cutting any forest, citing soil and water degradation, unsightly landscapes, and other damages.
How does clear cutting affect water temperature?
The amount of sunlight reaching the stream may be increased after clear-cut logging. Average monthly maximum temperatures increased by 14°F and annual maximum temperatures increased from 57° to 85°F one year after clear-cut logging on a small watershed in Oregon’s coast range.
