Among these uses and purposes, as Sheila Reed (1992: 102-115) has pointed out, are: farming, livestock grazing, firewood collection and logging. With growing human populations, it is clear to see, home-building will plays an increasingly negative role in deforestation as well.
Reed classifies deforestation as one of four forms of environmental hazards, with the other three being: environmental pollution, desertification and pest infestation. More concerning, of course, is the fact that large-scale or widespread deforestation is itself the cause of other actual or potential hazards and disasters.
These observable consequences, and their conceivable second- and third-order effects, include: (a) landslides in areas where the soil is destabilized by the loss of its tree-cover, (b) drought, which often triggers famine, (c) famine, (d) desertification, (e) fires, resulting from the dryness which follows the loss of moisture previously preserved and protected by decades and centuries of tree-cover, and (f) 'severity of flooding' potentially exacerbated by greater sedimentation along river beds following the 'deforestation of watersheds'.
Rather surprisingly, Reed (1992: 104) also asserts that "flooding is the most serious side effect of deforestation". However, this may be true only in the 'short-term'. In the long-run, it is instead the risk of desertification (and the associated loss of farmland and water reservoirs), above all else, that should worry conservationists and food security professionals.
READ: Mauri Yambo (2008) "The Mau Water Tower"
READ: Mauri Yambo (2009) "Deforestation Threatens the Family Free"
READ: Mauri Yambo (2009) "Kenya: The Shamba System and Deforestation"
