Question

What are the consequences of deforestation?

Answer 1

Hint: Deforestation is the removal of vegetation or forest cover from a land. Forests and vegetation play a major role in the maintenance of natural resources like soil, water, etc.

Complete answer:
Deforestation has no positive effect on our environment, some of its consequences are as follows :
1) Increased $CO_2$ concentration in the immediate environment as plants could hold a lot of carbon in their biomass. $CO_2$ is a greenhouse gas and contributes to global warming.
2) Destruction of natural habitat and fragmentation, as forest, served as the natural habitat of a wide variety of animals.
3) Disturbance in the hydrological cycle. Transpiration by plants plays an important part in precipitation, with loss of forests precipitation also reduces.
4) Soil erosion and desertification also occur in extreme cases. Roots of plants hold the soil particles together, therefore with loss of trees, the soil becomes loose and more prone to erosion by wind and water.
5) Runoff from eroded soils drains into the aquatic ecosystem, thereby disturbing it.

Additional Information:
Tropical Deforestation - Clearing of tropical forests is increasing at an alarming rate. These forests support more than half of the global species and also influence the global climate.
It has been estimated that if current rates of deforestation continue 20-30% of the Amazonian rainforest will convert into grasslands.
Tipping Point - There is a threshold point up to which any ecosystem and the global system can tolerate stresses, beyond which they undergo abrupt changes and this often leads to the collapse of the systems.

Causes of deforestation are as follows:
1) Slash and burn agriculture
2) Forest fires
3) Overgrazing
4) The requirement for agricultural land
5) Urbanization

Chipko Movement: This movement's initial goal was the protection of trees but now it is devoted to the preservation of environment and wildlife. In march 1973 in Gopeshwar, trees were not allowed to be cut by villagers, they prevented cutting of trees by hugging them, this marked the birth of the Chipko movement.

Note: Deforestation can occur naturally by forest fires, natural calamities, etc, and also due to artificial causes like overgrazing, overexploitation of land, etc. Human activities have accelerated the rates of deforestation.