Man-kind over rule nature

Long before there was civilization, the lands were green and the rivers were clean. Now the lands are brown and the rivers are dirty. Deforestation has caused lands to turn brown. According to Spicer (2006), "originally there were 15 million square km of tropical rainforest currently there are 7.5 - 8 million square km, with the current rate of loss about 2% each year and growing"(Spicer, 2006). So what could have caused deforestation? The answer is civilization. Most importantly, during civilization, urbanization increased the rates of deforestation. There are three main activities happening during urbanization: the increasing need for accommodations, food resources, and other economical activities. These activities have caused more forests to be cleared.

It is because human are having better life due to urbanization, population has been increasing all this while. According to Stock and Rochen (n.d.), "population is continually growing in the third world" (Stock and Rochen, n.d.). This tells us that population in Southeast Asia is growing. And because of this growing population, more urbanization has taken place to meet the people's demand for better life.

Firstly, due to the increasingly need for accommodations more forests are being cleared. We know that civilization is the cluster of human beings in one location. Urbanization is an activity that helps improve human life. So, one activity that can improve human life is to provide accommodations to people. This will provide them protection from the harsh environment that they will be facing. In the past, this activity was carried out by clearing forest to provide land for building houses and materials for building those houses. In this present world, forests are cleared to provide more lands for building more houses so as to accommodate the increase in populations. According to Lindsey (2007), "global markets consume rainforest products that depend on sustainable harvesting: latex, cork, fruit, nuts, timber, fibers, spices, natural oils and resins, and medicines", which means there is always a constant rate loss of rainforest as there is harvesting of rainforest products happening every now and then, and those products are also some of the ones that improve the well-being of our life. In short, it is urbanization that has helped people in getting better life to support bigger families. But at the same time, it has also destroyed our forests.

Secondly, due to the increasingly need for foods, more forests are being cleared. As we know food and water are the essential elements for human survival. In the past, human got the food from the wild and water from river. That is why early civilization was found near forests and rivers. It is because urbanization human realize how to be self-reliant on getting food resources. One method is rearing domestic plants and animals. So for this method to be carried out, places are needed for agriculture. Hence, to provide such places, nearby forest has to be cleared. To worsen the current situation of deforestation, human being ability to be self-reliant on getting foods has increased the chances of human survival. Thus, this has led to the increase in population and the decrease in death rate. In other word, more forests have to be cleared for agriculture purposes in order to meet the food demand of the increase in population.

Lastly, in this present world, economy is the greatest tool to get anything we want; therefore forests are cleared to make space for industrialization and business hubs like shopping center. Due to the invention of money, a civilization needs to be prosperous in order to get materials from other civilizations or countries to support their citizens' welfare. In the past, one civilization got materials from other civilization by exchanging those materials they wanted with the materials they have within their reach. Now everything is done in dollar cash. So urbanization is carried out to create wealth for the purpose of trading. It can be done by having economic activities such as industrialization and business hub. Again, the same element is needed for such activities to be carried. That is Land. The same thing applies as the previous two activities which is the clearing of forests. In addition, industrialization poses threat to the environment like land pollution thus strongly affected plants growth. As a result, this pollution double or triple the rate to deforestation. Consequently, in future time, we will only see rainforests on photos, papers or videos in the museum. Therefore, the economic activities occurring in countries in Southeast Asia have caused serious environmental problem of deforestation.

To summarize, since countries in Southeast Asia are still developing, and urbanization is employed for the development, they will certainly face serious deforestation problem. Land is not something that can be created without sacrificing other element, so we cannot have land without clearing anythings. Therefore, deforestation becomes unavoidable for urbanization's sake in Southeast Asia.

In view of the fact that to keep a balance between anything we follow this example. After we spend some money, we always find a way to earn money, so that we can keep a balance between our cash flow without exhausting all our wealth. But in this case, the balance cannot be established. It is because forests size is not easily maintained without using other lands for reforestation.

Reference

Spicer, J. (2006). Biodiversity. Oxford: Oneworld Pubns Ltd.

Stock, J., & Rochen, A. (n.d.). The choice: Doomsday or arbor day. Retrieved March 11, 2008, from http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/deforestation.htm

Lindsey, R. (2007, March 30). Tropical deforestation. Retrieved March 11, 2008, from http://eob.gsfc.nasa.gov/Library/Deforestation/