New News Biology #73

Land Use - Deforestation & Peat Bogs

Land is probably the most important limited resource in the world. We use it to build towns and cities, quarrying, farming, and dumping waste.

However, the more we use land, the less there is left for other organisms. In fact, converting land for our own use often damages the environment even more.

Deforestation - the cutting down of forests.

This practice is common around the world, and may be a result of many reasons including:

Clearing land for farming - raising cattle and the food cattle eat, as well as growing other crops like rice. The crops may also include those that we would later use as biofuels (plant-based fuels), which would be a good alternative of fossil fuels.

Logging - this is probably the most straightforward reason for deforestation, to get the wood itself. This wood can be used as construction material for building houses, creating furniture, or burn it as a fuel.

Deforestation is obviously not good for the local ecosystem and the environment no matter where it happens. However, this practice is now most common in tropical regions where there are many rainforests.

There are three main downsides to deforestation:

Destroying potential carbon stores - as these cut down trees can’t perform photosynthesis, not as much carbon dioxide will be took in from the atmosphere, so more carbon dioxide will be left in the atmosphere to contribute to global warming.

Burning - there is a way of deforestation, to clear the forests by burning them. This not only destroys the potential carbon the trees will take in over their lifetime, but also destroys biological molecules of the tree that once held carbon, releasing all that carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Also, the smoke created from burning all these trees can pollute towns and suffocate animals.

Reduces biodiversity - the areas that underwent deforestation probably were a habitat that supported entire species and had a high biodiversity. By destroying the habitat, we reduce biodiversity and may even result in the extinction of entire species that relied on that habitat to survive.

Peat Bogs - comes from soil that is both waterlogged and highly acidic

The unique part about this soil is it is too acidic for microorganisms that usually help decay plants survive. Also, the water stops the air from getting into the soil, so there isn’t enough oxygen for aerobic respiration. So the partially decayed dead plants build up into peat. This means that the peat also contains all the carbon the plants had stored in their biological molecules over their lifetime, which doesn’t get released into the atmosphere.

So peat is actually very good for the environment as it is a store for carbon.

However, peat bogs are often drained to make way for farmland. As the water is removed, microorganisms can start thriving and decomposing the dead plants, releasing all the carbon as carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. We also purposefully remove the peat to burn it as a fuel or use it in compost, which effectively releases the carbon as carbon dioxide.

The practice of destroying peat bogs also reduces biodiversity and may even result in the extinction of entire species, effects similar to that of deforestation.