Environmental Issues Test - 13

Shifting cultivation is a kind of cultivation in which cultivating land is changed periodically. Forests are burnt and the ash is mixed with the soil and the land is used for cultivation of crop. This kind of cultivation causes deforestation.

Forests are habitat of large number of plants and animals along with microbes. Deforestation causes loss of habit and loss of speies living in that area that results into co-extinction.

Deforestation generally decreases rainfall. Plants release water in form of water vapour in the process of transpiration. The water vapour contribute in cloud formation to bring rains.

An Act to consolidate the law relating to forests, the transit of forest-produce and the duty leviable on timber and other forest-produce. The Indian Forest Act, 1927 was largely based on previous Indian Forest Acts implemented under the British.

Shifting cultivation practiced in India is called jhum cultivation in which forest is cleaned for agriculture practice and after few years this area is abandoned and another forest land is cleared.

Floods can be checked by reforestation. The roots of plants binds the soil and act as barrier in flow of flood water to reduce its current speed.

Chipko movement originated in Terhi Garwal of Utter Pradesh to protect the forest form contractors. In this movement women of village hug the tree to prevent it from cutting.

Deforestation does not lead to quick nutrient cycling but it may leads to soil erosion, alteration of local weather conditions and destruction of natural habitat of wild animals.

Jhum cultivation refers to tribal method of shifting cultivation by clearing forest for agriculture again and again. It is an act of deforestation.

The regulative function of forest is storage and release of gases. Plants in forests converts carbon dioxide gas into oxygen during photosynthesis.