This acknowledgement led all experts gathered at the signing of the Kyoto Protocol to coin the term “carbon sink” to refer to those ecosystems that help reduce the high and increasing concentration of CO2 in the air.ĭuring the last decades, biologists have discovered important data to understand the process through which plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, store part of the carbon and return oxygen to the air. The photosynthesis carried out by large masses of vegetation, especially those which are biologically young, is an important element in the absorption of CO2, the most important gas that causes the global warming of the atmosphere. The best known function of forests is the absorption of the atmospheric CO2. The most recent analysis carried out in Colombia shows that over 120,000 hectares of forest were lost in 2015 and although the pace is slowing down, the process continues and the country, like all the ones located in the tropical belt, is far from reaching “zero deforestation.” In 2015, according to FAO, forests still covered 30% of the surface of the Earth, a mass of life that is seriously threatened, as 13 million hectares of forest disappear every year and the land degradation affects 70% of all dry land, around 3.6 billion hectares.Īs shown in the short film, this degradation is mainly due to the cutting down and burning carried out by the wood industry or due to land obtainment for farming and stockbreeding. These areas are scattered across more than one hundred countries, most of them developing ones, which fight to obtain full access to water and food safety. It is mainly caused by human action and it is one of the many trigger events of desertification, something which, according to FAO, directly affects around 250 million people and threatens around 1 billion people located in risk areas. Deforestation is the process that destroys the forest area on Earth.
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