Biodiversity+and+change

The most important aspect of biodiversity includes Flora(Plant life) and Fauna(animals.) In the case of geography, the focus is on Flora. The aspect of Flora that is of interest to geographers, is the tropical rain forest. The tropical rain forest is found in the tropical regions of the the world. i.e West and Central Africa, Central parts of South America, South East Asia; India, Indonesia. Flora is most important especially in the Tropical Rain Forest ** IMPORTANCE OF TROPICAL RAIN FOREST. ** ** REASONS WHY THE TROPICAL FOREST IS BEING DESTROYED (FOREST DEPLETION). **
 * BIODIVERSITY AND CHANGE ** Biodiversity is the diversity of animals and plant life in a particular habitat.
 * 1) It is a source of income in the form of lumbering and cultivation of plant products.
 * 2) It provides medicinal plants e.g. Neem, Eucalyptus and Mahogany.
 * 3) It helps in flood control (Reducing surface run-off).
 * 4) It helps to control soil erosion (falling leaves will decompose and increase the amount of humus (roots also help))
 * 5) It promotes eco-tourism –- E.g. Kakum park and Aburi garden in Ghana
 * 6) It helps in the absorption of CO2 and emission of O2.
 * 7) It serves as habitat to indigenous tribes and animals e.g the Zingu's in Brazil
 * 8) It serves as materials to make cultural products such as drums, bows and arrows, stools, tools, mortars e.t.c
 * 9) It helps in maintaining the climate of a give area for example helps to induce rainfall through evapo-transpiration.
 * 10) Agricultural purposes;
 * 11) Tree crops e.g. cocoa
 * 12) Subsistence farms and inter planting.
 * 13) Lumbering
 * 14) Ranching- Livestock raising, pastoral farming
 * 15) Settlement increase, roads construction etc.
 * **Cattle Ranching**- As the world's population grows, the demand for meat increases thus farmers have to increase their supply of meat. This means that Larger portions from the tropical rain forest are needed to accommodate bigger and more ranches.
 * Road Construction- As a result of an increase in economic development there is a need to construct roads, expand electricity
 * As the world’s population gets richer the **demand for food** which leads to deforestation in order to cultivate food crops.
 * To reduce the population of tsetse flies which feed on cows. Tsetse flies cannot survive in the cleared savanna areas, so herders clear forest lands to
 * **Subsistence farming-** As a result of an increase in population there is an increase in the demand for food which necessitates the clearing of the tropical rain forest for the cultivation of food crops.
 * More **Hydroelectric power plants** have to be put up due to the increase in the demand for energy supply. Hence there more land is needed to build dams over rivers in forests;leading to the flooding of tropical rain forest vegetation.
 * **Surface Mining**- With the increasing demand for he world’s natural natural resources, countries and companies are looking for increasingly isolated locations such as thee tropical rain forest where it Is believed that there are many of such minerals. The leads to the clearance of the forest and its entire body of vegetation in order to mine for mineral resources such as gold, bauxite, silver, diamonds as well as natural resources such as fossil fuels. These activities destroy the forest and contaminate water bodies, thereby affecting the flora and fauna of the tropical rain forest.
 * Increased demand for **land for settlement purposes-** Urbanization is the increase of people living in urban settlements. As a result of rapid urbanization, settlements begin to expand which calls for the need to expand for the expansion of houses and roads, water and electricity infrastructure. This leads to the cutting down of the surrounding tropical rain forest.


 * EFFECTS OF THE DEPLETION OF THE RAIN FORESTS.**


 * Decrease in the levels of oxygen due to a decrease in the number of trees to produce oxygen.
 * There will be an increase in the amount of carbon-dioxide in the air that will lead to global warming in the long run- the carbon-dioxide gas absorbs the long wave radiation from the earth, this make the earth surface warmer.
 * Decrease in the amount of rainfall due to the reduction of the vegetation cover- less evapo-transpiration.
 * Reduced interception capacity leading to increased likelihood of soil erosion and flooding.
 * It leads to the destruction of the habitats of the indigenous population such as the Zingu people of the amazon forest.