Category Plants & Animals

Imagine a world in which most of the trees are dead, where leaves and flowers are spotted with disease, and fruits can’t grow. It wouldn’t be a very nice world. But many scientists fear that’s what our world may be like someday – if we don’t do something now about air pollution.

Air pollution begins when gases from cars, factories, lawn mowers, and burning wood enter the air. Acid rain forms when certain chemicals from air pollution rise up and mix with the water in the clouds.

The rain or snow that falls from these polluted clouds harms the leaves of trees. The trees slowly lose their leaves and die. Acid rain also soaks into the soil and damages plants and crops. Many of the world’s forests – especially the pine forests of northern Europe – are suffering from the effects of acid rain.

Air pollution is a very serious problem. But scientists and many other people are working very hard to clean up the air and keep it clean, for the sake of all the world’s people and plants.

Vanishing Tropical Rain Forests

Everywhere in the world people are taking over more land. In tropical rain forests, parts of the forest are cut down and burned to make room for crops. After a time, the soil in these parts is no longer good for growing crops. Then the people move on to another place. It is hard for new plants to grow in the poor soil. Without plants and trees, the soil that is left washes away.

People also destroy tropical rain forests to get timber. The trees that grow in these forests provide valuable wood. Every day, in many countries, people are cutting down trees that have taken years and years to grow.

In the world’s biggest tropical rain forest, the Amazon rain forest in South America, people are building a giant motorway. Trees are being cut down to build the motorway. When the road is finished, more people will travel into the rain forest. This may lead to even more destruction.

The world’s tropical rain forests are home to many kinds of rare animals. They may have lived there for many thousands of years in the safety of the trees. But now the tropical rain forest is disappearing fast. Scientists believe that some rain forest animals will die out even before they have been discovered!

Threats from People

People are a plant’s worst enemies. This is mainly because people want or need things that can be made from plants.

Many kinds of plants are becoming rare because of their beauty. People often dig these plants up and take them home. The beautiful flowers of orchids and some cactuses have made them targets for collectors. The rare Cooktown orchid of Australia, though protected, is picked by collectors.

Great numbers of palm trees are destroyed for their stems, which are made into furniture, and for their fruit. Hundreds of types of palms are endangered today.

People kill many plants for use in medicines. The Pacific yew was once the source of a drug that doctors use to treat cancer. But getting the drug threatened these trees so much that researchers found other ways of making the drug.

People kill plants when they develop land. Lots of land is used for building. Even more is changed into farmland or grazing land for cattle and other animals. As the population increases, people build more roads, houses, factories, mines, shopping centres, and car parks.

But plants need their own special place to live in, too. They need the right kind of soil, the right temperature, and the right amount of rainfall. They need the right habitat. When habitats disappear, the animals that live there often disappear too. If we destroy too many natural habitats, we may lose many of the plants and animals in our lives.

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Threats from Animals

All over the world, plants are being destroyed by animals. Sometimes this is perfectly natural and is part of the balance of nature. Other times, it can be disastrous.

Insects such as caterpillars and grubs, which later become beetles, often eat leaves or burrow into the wood of trees. But sometimes, a nest of tent caterpillars eats all the buds or young leaves on a tree. When this happens, the tree will die.

Big problems also arise when people bring animals to areas where they don’t belong. Rabbits have destroyed valuable grazing land in Australia. They eat the grasses farmers need for their livestock. Rabbits were turned loose in 1859 by British settlers. But in Australia, rabbits have few natural enemies, so now there are too many rabbits.

In Hawaii, escaped pigs and goats have destroyed many rare plants. They trample the plants and eat the roots so the plants can’t grow back. Goats also may eat all the plants on a hillside. With no roots to hold the soil, rain can wash it down the hill. This loss of soil is called erosion and keeps plants from growing. Today, about half of Hawaii’s plants are either very rare, endangered, or already extinct.

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Plants can get sick, just as people can. Insects and other animals can chew plants until they die. Fire can turn them into a pile of ashes. Polluted air from cars and factories can choke the life out of plants. And when ground is dug up for new factories, houses, and car parks, plants lose the space they need to live.

Everyone depends on plants for beauty, food, and fresh air. So everyone needs to save them and care for them.

Picture Credit : Google

Plants in Danger

Endangered plants need people’s help to survive. A species, or kind, of plant is endangered when it is seriously close to disappearing, or becoming extinct. Scientists think that as many as 20,000 different kinds of plants are endangered.

Rafflesia is one of the world’s most endangered plants because the rain forests in which it lives are being destroyed. The giant rafflesia has the largest flower in the world. It grows up to 90 centimetres wide, and it smells like rotten meat! The smell attracts the flies that pollinate the flower.

For many years, scientists believed that the Virginia round-leaf birch and a type of Australian elaeocarpus tree were extinct. Then, in 1975, a scientist found a group of round-leaf birches alive and well. Since then, people have worked to protect the round-leaf birch.

In 1992, scientist discovered that elaeocarpus trees were still alive, too, growing in the rain forest of New South Wales. They have found more than 100 elaeocarpus trees in the wild since then.

Picture Credit : Google