India is losing her green cover too fast for comfort

In a study undertaken by the University of Melbourne it has been revealed that the world's forest cover has shrunk by 3% since 1990 and India is among the countries who are losing their forest cover faster than others. Others are Vietnam and Ghana and all these are among the poorest countries in the world.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 15 September 2015.

The reasons are deforestation in the name of industries and development and to accommodate the housing needs of increasing population.
The study has said that in low-income countries with high forest cover, forests are being cleared for direct subsistence by individuals and families and large scale agriculture for broader economic development. It has been found that the total global forest area has reduced by three percent between 1990 and 2015 from 4,128 million hectares to 3,999 million hectares – that means a loss of 129 million hectares.
Moreover, loss of natural forested area was double the global total at 6%, and loss of tropical forests was of the order of 10%.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Scientists have cautioned – Earth is entering its sixth phase of mass extinction

A study conducted by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley, has revealed that vertebrates were disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal. There are apprehensions that the Earth is entering its sixth phase of mass extinctions – and humans could be the first casualty.
The last such event occurred 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs were wiped out – probably as a result of a large meteor hitting the Earth as reported in bbc.com dated 19 June 2015.

One of the authors of the study has indicated that humans are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event and, unless it is checked life would take many millions of years to recover and the human would possibly disappear early on. The scientists arrived at the conclusion by examining historic rates of extinction for vertebrates - animals with backbones - by assessing fossil records. They found that the current extinction rate was more than 100 times higher than in periods when Earth was not going through a mass extinction event.
Since 1900, the report says, more than 400 more vertebrates had disappeared. The worry is that such a loss would normally be seen over a period of up to 10,000 years – but, it has happened within 115 years!!
This can be attributed to known causes like climate change, pollution and deforestation. The study also shows that given the knock-on effect of ecosystems being destroyed, the benefits of nature like pollination by bees could be lost within three human generations.
It can be said that we are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on. In the opinion of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), at least 50 species of animals are inching towards extinction every year. Also, nearly 41% of all amphibians and 25% of mammals are threatened with extinction.
As an example - 94% of all lemurs are under threat and more than a fifth of all lemur species are classed as "critically endangered". Their habitat in Madagascar has been wiped out by illegal logging and they are also regularly hunted for their meat.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Environmentalists can breathe easy – green cover has increased over the last decade

#greencover #treeplanting #environmentalists At every step there are fears that the green cover is depleting because mankind is felling trees and systematically ripping up forests with a result that the green cover is vanishing. But, environmentalists can now rest assured – our planet Earth today is actually greener than it was a decade ago.
This has been revealed in dailymail.co.uk dated 6 April 2015.
In one of the latest studies scientists have calculated that the total vegetation on the planet has increased substantially between 2003 and 2012. It is a fact that tropical jungles are still disappearing being felled for timber and to make way for cattle pasture, the tree growth in other places has compensated and outstripped the loss.

The area of ground covered by plants has increased in Russia, China, Australia and Africa, leading to a net gain in vegetation cover. Some of this is a result of deliberate conservation like huge tree-planting campaign by the Chinese.
In other places, it was attributable to high rainfalls that resulted in faster growth of shrubs and grasses on the plains of Africa, northern Australia and South America.
Moreover, the abandonment of large agricultural areas following the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to forests reclaiming farmland.
The study was carried out by an Australian team and they have found that the ‘greening effect’ has been so substantial that the world’s trees and plants are storing 4billion more tonnes of carbon than they were a decade before.
The results have been compiled by scientists after analyzing 20 years of satellite data and the findings have come after decades of warnings about environmental catastrophe being caused by deforestation.
The results of the study are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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Pope Francis to focus his attention, in 2015, to climate change

#PopeFrancis #ClimateChange #CatholicBishops Pope Francis has shown that he is made of a different material and he is unhappy that no one is taking climate change seriously. People call him the “superman pope”, and President Obama has cited him as a key player in the thawing of relations with Cuba. Pope Francis has also lectured his cardinals on the need to clean up Vatican politics. And, his focus is now on climate change.
Among his plans for 2015 are to issue a lengthy message on the subject to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, give an address to the UN general assembly and also call a summit of the world’s main religions. His basic intention is to influence the 2015 crucial climate meeting in Paris. On that occasion, the countries will try to conclude 20 years of fraught negotiations with a universal commitment to reduce emissions.
In March last Pope Francis had visited Tacloban – this was the city in the Philippine that had been devastated in 2012 by typhoon Haiyan. The pope would be publishing a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology. He would also urge all Catholics to take action on moral and scientific grounds. He plans to send the document to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will be expected to distribute it to parishioners.
He has very rightly remarked that the monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. In this connection he has added that climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms that are being witnessed.
The efforts of Pope Francis would possibly meet with resistance from certain groups but, for preservation of the world and for the sake of environmental protection, his stand should be appreciated.