Tropical Forestlands and Human Activities

Tropical forests are severely affected by human activities, resulting in devastated land of 850 million hectares [1]. Complete forests provide various ecosystem services, degraded forests may reduce carbon emissions, reduce biomass and biodiversity, and even promote the spread of infectious diseases [2-4]. The regeneration of these forests may passively occur through the inheritance of natural forests. Passive regeneration has few unintended consequences (such as slow regeneration) and requires less resources and human resources than positively planting trees [5].

Unfortunately, tropical forests are fragile ecosystems, and human activities are increasingly using these ecosystems. Causes of logging of tropical forests are complicated, governments, commercial interests, and citizens are involved. Governments in developing countries, facing huge amounts of external debt and rapid population growth, regard the forests of their countries as resources that can be used to improve their economic growth and living standards of their citizens. Multinational corporations and international lending institutions have contributed to the reduction of tropical forests by funding large forests for key projects in timber, fruit and pulp plantations and mining operations. Logging resources and logging of agricultural land have a serious impact on forest ecosystems. When trees are stripped from the ground, exposed soils are often eroded and nutrients in the remaining soil leach.

As the population continues to increase, the threat to tropical forests is also increasing. The surprising destruction rate of tropical forests has serious implications for thousands of animals and plants that depend on these habitats. The most endangered species at the Woodland Park Zoo are tropical low gorillas (gorilla gorillas), African little alligators (Osteolaemus tetraspis), South East Asian Malar bears (Helarctos malayanus), and so on. Golden Lion t Monkey (Leontopithecus rosalia). (For more information about tropical forests, see Woodland Park Zoo 's Rainforest and Tropical Asia Teacher' s Pack.)