The greed of humans is exploding deforestation
Felling trees without an afterthought
To meet the needs of a construction industry
To clear the land for the expansion of settlements
To prepare land for cultivation
Deforestation affects biodiversity,
Loss of habitat for countless plants and animals
Many rare species are facing the threat of extinction
Without trees to stop the fast runoff of rainwater
Climate change implodes flooding and soil erosion
Untimely monsoons and flash flooding make people
Take refuge in camps, with damages to their homes
Kerala and Europe have seen the effects recently
Without trees storing water, droughts occur in places
The temperatures are increasing in many countries
Affecting the availability of potable water
Desertification is posing a threat to more population
Deforestation leads to more greenhouse gases emissions
As trees are the best storage medium for that
It is a major factor in the global warming that
Caused drastic increase in sea level over the years
Putting the lives of thousands of islanders in
Tuvalu, Kiribati, Maldives, and Marshall Islands under threat
The manmade fire in the Amazon that lasted months
Burning everything down in a rainforest
To make way for soybean plantations
The clearing of rainforests in South East Asia
To build monoculture palm tree plantations
It destroyed the entire ecosystem over the years
It is causing conflict between humans and wild animals
The captive tree forests for claiming trees
Too ruined many thick forests for commercial revenue
And the natural bushfires in Australia and California
Seeing more devastations with climate change
The images of barely alive animals seeking water
The seasons and weather are changing drastically
Across the world in different ways
As people uproot more trees daily without replanting
A search in my blog by someone about deforestation led me to read about deforestation and its effects worldwide. It is a rather complex issue. I touched upon some aspects of it in this poem. Images are taken from istockphoto and dreamstime. New Forests In The Deserts is the continuation of the topic of this poem.
