Guest post from Project Eco – Deforestation

Hey everyone!! Today I’ve got a wonderful guest post for all of you! This one is from Project Eco, who I’ve had loads of fun working with, and I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did!

Hey, its Project Eco and we are back to do a guest post!  

Today we are going to be writing about deforestation and how you can help to reduce/stop it. 

Deforestation is the permanent removal of trees to make room for something besides forests. The land is then often used for agriculture and grazing, or the trees were just chopped down for wood or paper. 

Forests cover 30% of Earth’s land, which may not sound like much, but the rate of deforestation equals to a loss of 30 football fields a minute. Which means there must be a lot of forests.  

There are lots of effects of deforestation, here are a few: 

• Animals lose their homes or are injured and even killed in the process of deforestation. This can lead to extinction of species and will change the entire ecosystem of what were previously forest areas. 
• Trees store carbon dioxide, so when they are cut down, that is released into the atmosphere and speeds up the greenhouse effect. Not only that, but they can no longer absorb anymore greenhouse gases that humans are releasing into the atmosphere. 
• Trees also control the level of water in the atmosphere, and without trees, there is less water in the air to be returned to the soil so new plants and animals can grow. 
• Although it may not seem obvious, but deforestation can cause soil erosion and coastal flooding. Trees help the land to retain water and keep soil in place. Without trees, soil erodes and washes away, meaning farmers can no longer use the land for agriculture and then it is more prone to flooding. 
• Some people (called indigenous people) that live in the forests will lose their homes and will find it hard to find a home elsewhere. 

More than 1.6 billion people rely on forest resources for their day to day lives. So, we are going to be telling you about how we can reduce our use of forest resources.  

Top 10 tips to stop climate change! 

• Walk whenever you can instead of driving 
• Recycle things properly 
• Save scrap paper and use it whenever you don’t need a new piece  
• Make sure you turn off all the lights when you leave the house 
• Try to switch to renewable energy resources 
• Don’t keep taps running 
• Avoid using plastic bags 
• Reuse items that can be reused 
• Plant things (it’s fun) 
• Don’t EVER, EVER litter 

Another thing we thought would be great to talk about is mangrove trees. These trees are amazing for so many reasons, and some of these include fast growing, wide roots and extremely great carbon sucking leaves. In places like Thailand, rising sea levels caused by climate change are eroding the land, meaning thousands of people lose their homes each year, sometimes more. This can also be affected if water is wasted. Climate change is also increasing storm rates, so cyclones are taking clumps of land. For this reason, millions of mangrove trees are being planted. Their big roots suck water from lots of areas and hold the land together. They grow very quickly and in 1 month they would have grown the amount you would expect a tree to grow in a year! Their leaves suck up almost twice as much carbon as other leaves, and get ready for the big part…  

They have little tubes that stick out next to them, that suck up storm power and stop the storm! These trees are the superheroes of the natural world! 

A fun craft to do is make little lid drawings and decoration. To do this you will need:  

•          A lid of some sort (preferably white) 

•          Coloured pens  

•          Needle and thread  

Instructions: 

1.        Draw on a design on the top of the lid 

2.        Tie a knot at the bottom of the thread and attach it from the back as shown in the image 

3.        You can iron it down so it’s flat if you want  

And that’s it! This craft is easy but you just need to be careful. 

I hope you enjoyed our post!
~ Project Eco ~