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Phosphorus is very critical to plants' growth. It is onky found ina few countries, which is why it is estimated that it will run out in   50-100 years. "Our puse must be drastically reduced in the next 20-40 years or we will begin to starve."
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/05/fertilizer-peak-phosphorus-shortage

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We are losing more and more oil each day because of the constant demand of it by humans. We are using up so much of the oil in earth that in 2010 we measured that there is only 188.8 million tonnes of oil left, if we keep using oil at a constant rate we will run out of oil in 46 years.

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Indium is used in phones for the screens. It is found in zinc mines since it isnt common or has major deposits. It can't run out but the amount that would be found from rocks would not supply our demand. Other metals used in smart phones are alsorunning out. Palladium is majorly used for the capacitor is also used in automobile and jewlery production. 15 tons are used just in cell phones even thou it covers less than .02 percent of it. We are getting rid of metals deposits of this earth and in less than a century most of the rare metals would be gone and only in small particles throughout the world.

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Should we worry about natural resources running out? As Rachel Nuwer discovers, that's the wrong way of looking at a far more complex problem

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Fish demand, epecially in Asia, has caused overishing to skyrocket. Overfishing could lead to an unbalanced food chain, ocean ecosystem, and much more.

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Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area. Overfishing can occur in water bodies of any sizes, such as ponds, wetlands, rivers, lakes or oceans, and can result in resource depletion, reduced biological growth rates and low biomass levels. Sustained overfishing can lead to critical depensation, where the fish population is no longer able to sustain itself. Some forms of overfishing, such as the overfishing of sharks, has led to the upset of entire marine ecosystems.[1] Types of overfishing include: growth overfishing, recruitment overfishing, ecosystem overfishing.

Jack mackerel caught by a Chilean purse seiner

Fishing down the food web

The ability of a fishery to recover from overfishing depends on whether its overall carrying capacity and the variety of ecological conditions are suitable for the recovery. Dramatic changes in species composition can result in an ecosystem shift, where other equilibrium energy flows involve species compositions different from those that had been present before the depletion of the original fish stock. For example, once trout have been overfished, carp might exploit the change in competitive equilibria and take over in a way that makes it impossible for the trout to re-establish a breeding population.

Since the growth of global fishing enterprises after the 1950s, intensive fishing has spread from a few concentrated areas to encompass nearly all fisheries. The scraping of the ocean floor in bottom dragging is devastating to coral, sponges and other slower-growing benthic species that do not recover quickly, and that provide a habitat for commercial fisheries species. This destruction alters the functioning of the ecosystem and can permanently alter species' composition and biodiversity. Bycatch, the collateral capture of unintended species in the course of fishing, is typically returned to the ocean only to die from injuries or exposure. Bycatch represents about a quarter of all marine catch. In the case of shrimp capture, the bycatch is five times larger than the shrimp caught.

A report by FAO in 2020 stated that "in 2017, 34 percent of the fish stocks of the world's marine fisheries were classified as overfished".[2]: 54  Mitigation options include: Government regulation, removal of subsidies, minimizing fishing impact, aquaculture and consumer awareness.

Darker shades mean less overfishing, lighter shades mean more overfishing. EPI scores range from 1-7; 7=highest level of overfishing.

Overfishing has stripped many fisheries around the world of their stocks. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in a 2018 report that 33.1% of world fish stocks are subject to overfishing.[3] Significant overfishing has been observed in pre-industrial times. In particular, the overfishing of the western Atlantic Ocean from the earliest days of European colonisation of the Americas has been well documented.[4]

The fraction of fish stocks that are within biologically sustainable levels has exhibited a decreasing trend, from 90% in 1974 to 66.9% in 2015. In contrast, the percentage of stocks fished at biologically unsustainable levels increased from 10% in 1974 to 33.1% in 2015, with the largest increases in the late-1970s and 1980s.

Global trends in the state of the world's marine fish stocks, from FAO's Statistical Yearbook 2020[5]

In 2015, maximally sustainably fished stocks (formerly termed fully fished stocks) accounted for 59.9% and underfished stocks for 7% of the total assessed stocks.[6] While the proportion of underfished stocks decreased continuously from 1974 to 2015, the maximally sustainably fished stocks decreased from 1974 to 1989, and then increased to 59.9% in 2015.[6]

In 2015, among the 16 major statistical areas, the Mediterranean and Black Sea had the highest percentage (62.2%) of unsustainable stocks, closely followed by the Southeast Pacific 61.5% and Southwest Atlantic 58.8%. In contrast, the Eastern Central Pacific, Northeast Pacific (Area 67), Northwest Pacific (Area 61), Western Central Pacific and Southwest Pacific had the lowest proportion (13 to 17%) of fish stocks at biologically unsustainable levels.[6]

Daniel Pauly, a fisheries scientist known for pioneering work on the human impacts on global fisheries, has commented:[7]

It is almost as though we use our military to fight the animals in the ocean. We are gradually winning this war to exterminate them. And to see this destruction happen, for nothing really - for no reason - that is a bit frustrating. Strangely enough, these effects are all reversible, all the animals that have disappeared would reappear, all the animals that were small would grow, all the relationships that you can't see any more would re-establish themselves, and the system would re-emerge.

According to the Secretary General of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, "Overfishing cannot continue, the depletion of fisheries poses a major threat to the food supply of millions of people."[8]

The fishing down the food web is something that occurs when overfishing arises. Once all larger fish are caught, the fisherman will start to fish the smaller individuals, which would lead to more fish needing to be caught to keep up with demand.[9] This decreases fish populations, as well as genetic diversity of the species, making them more susceptible to disease, and less likely to adapt to their stressors and the environment.[10] Additionally, catching smaller fish leads to breeding of smaller offspring, which can be problematic for fish. In many species, the smaller the female, the less fecund it is, impacting the fish population.[11]

There are three recognized types of biological overfishing: growth overfishing, recruit overfishing, and ecosystem overfishing.

Overfishing can deplete key reef species and damage coral habitat. Coral reef fish are a significant food source for over a billion people worldwide.[12]

Growth overfishing occurs when fish are harvested at an average size that is smaller than the size that would produce the maximum yield per recruit. A recruit is an individual that makes it to maturity, or into the limits specified by a fishery, which are usually size or age.[13] This makes the total yield less than it would be if the fish were allowed to grow to an appropriate size. It can be countered by reducing fishing mortality to lower levels and increasing the average size of harvested fish to a size that will allow maximum yield per recruit.[14][15]

Recruitment overfishing happens when the mature adult population (spawning biomass) is depleted to a level where it no longer has the reproductive capacity to replenish itself-there are not enough adults to produce offspring.[14] Increasing the spawning stock biomass to a target level is the approach taken by managers to restore an overfished population to sustainable levels. This is generally accomplished by placing moratoriums, quotas, and minimum size limits on a fish population.

Ecosystem overfishing occurs when the balance of the ecosystem is altered by overfishing. With declines in the abundance of large predatory species, the abundance of small forage type increases causing a shift in the balance of the ecosystem towards smaller fish species.

Examples of overfishing exist in areas such as the North Sea, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and the East China Sea.[16][17] In these locations, overfishing has not only proved disastrous to fish stocks, but also to the fishing communities relying on the harvest. Like other extractive industries such as forestry and hunting, fisheries are susceptible to economic interaction between ownership or stewardship and sustainability, otherwise known as the tragedy of the commons.

Overfished US stocks, 2015

Tuna has been caught by the locals in the upper Adriatic for centuries. Increasing fishing prevented the large schools of little tunny from migrating into the Gulf of Trieste. The last major tuna catch was made in 1954 by the fishermen of Santa Croce, Contovello and Barcola.[18]

The Peruvian coastal anchovy fisheries crashed in the 1970s after overfishing and an El Niño season[19] largely depleted anchovies from its waters.[20][21] Anchovies were a major natural resource in Peru; indeed, 1971 alone yielded 10.2 million metric tons of anchovies. However, the following five years saw the Peruvian fleet's catch amount to only about four million tons.[19] This was a major loss to Peru's economy.

The collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery off Newfoundland,[22] and the 1992 decision by Canada to impose an indefinite moratorium on the Grand Banks, is a dramatic example of the consequences of overfishing.[23]

The sole fisheries in the Irish Sea, the west English Channel, and other locations have become overfished to the point of virtual collapse, according to the UK government's official Biodiversity Action Plan. The United Kingdom has created elements in this plan to attempt to restore the fishery, but the expanding global human population and the expanding demand for fish has reached a point where demand for food threatens the stability of these fisheries, if not the species' survival.[24]

Many deep sea fish are at risk, such as orange roughy and sablefish. The deep sea is almost completely dark, near freezing, and has little food. Deep sea fish grow slowly because of limited food, have slow metabolisms, low reproductive rates, and many do not reach breeding maturity for 30 to 40 years. A fillet of orange roughy at the store is probably at least 50 years old. Most deep sea fish are in international waters, where there are no legal protections. Most of these fish are caught by deep trawlers near seamounts, where they congregate for food. Flash freezing allows the trawlers to work for days at a time, and modern fishfinders target the fish with ease.[25]

Blue walleye became extinct in the Great Lakes in the 1980s. Until the middle of the 20th century, the walleye was a commercially valuable fish, with about a half million tonnes being landed in the period from about 1880 to the late-1950s, when the populations collapsed, apparently through a combination of overfishing, anthropogenic eutrophication, and competition with introduced rainbow smelt.

The World Wide Fund for Nature and the Zoological Society of London jointly issued their "Living Blue Planet Report" on 16 September 2015 which states that there was a dramatic fall of 74% in worldwide stocks of the important scombridae fish such as mackerel, tuna and bonitos between 1970 and 2010, and the global overall "population sizes of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish fell by half on average in just 40 years."[26]

Overfishing of the critically endangered Pacific bluefin tuna has resulted in the few still caught selling for astronomical prices. In January 2019, a 278 kilogram (612 pound) tuna sold for 333.6 million yen, or over US$3 million, US$4,900 per pound. Fishers, driven by the fish's high value, use extraordinary techniques to catch them, leaving the population on the verge of collapse.[27]

Sharks and rays: The global abundance of oceanic sharks and rays has declined by 71% since 1970, owing to an 18-fold increase in relative fishing pressure. As a consequence, three-quarters of the species comprising this group are now threatened with extinction.[28]

A study in 2003 found that, as compared with 1950 levels, only a remnant (in some instances, as little as 10%) of all large ocean-fish stocks are left in the seas. These large ocean fish are the species at the top of the food chains (e.g., tuna, cod, among others). This article was subsequently criticized as being fundamentally flawed, although much debate still exists and the majority of fisheries scientists now consider the results irrelevant with respect to large pelagics (the open seas).[29]

Several countries are now effectively managing their fisheries. Examples include Iceland and New Zealand.[30] The United States has turned many of its fisheries around from being in a highly depleted state.[31]

Atlantic cod stocks were severely overfished in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to their abrupt collapse in 1992.

According to a 2008 UN report, the world's fishing fleets are losing US$50 billion each year due to depleted stocks and poor fisheries management. The report, produced jointly by the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), asserts that half the world's fishing fleet could be scrapped with no change in catch. In addition, the biomass of global fish stocks have been allowed to run down to the point where it is no longer possible to catch the amount of fish that could be caught.[32] Increased incidence of schistosomiasis in Africa has been linked to declines of fish species that eat the snails carrying the disease-causing parasites.[33] Massive growth of jellyfish populations threaten fish stocks, as they compete with fish for food, eat fish eggs, and poison or swarm fish, and can survive in oxygen depleted environments where fish cannot; they wreak massive havoc on commercial fisheries. Overfishing eliminates a major jellyfish competitor and predator, exacerbating the jellyfish population explosion.[34] Both climate change and a restructuring of the ecosystem have been found to be major roles in an increase in jellyfish population in the Irish Sea in the 1990s.[35]

According to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, overfishing is a primary driver of mass extinction in the world's oceans.[36] A 2021 study published in the journal Nature asserted that the "primary cause" of ocean defaunation is overfishing.[28] Other studies have shown that overfishing has reduced fish and marine mammal biomass by 60% since the 1800s,[37] and is currently driving over one-third of sharks and rays to extinction.[38]

The notion of overfishing hinges on what is meant by an "acceptable level" of fishing. More precise biological and bioeconomic terms define acceptable level as follows:

Biological overfishing occurs when fishing mortality has reached a level where the stock biomass has negative marginal growth (reduced rate of biomass growth), as indicated by the red area in the figure. (Fish are being taken out of the water so quickly that the replenishment of stock by breeding slows down. If the replenishment continues to diminish for long enough, replenishment will go into reverse and the population will decrease.)[39]

Economic or bioeconomic overfishing additionally considers the cost of fishing when determining acceptable catches. Under this framework, a fishery is considered to be overfished when catches exceed maximum economic yield where resource rent is at its maximum. Fish are being removed from the fishery so quickly that the profitability of the fishery is sub-optimal. A more dynamic definition of economic overfishing also considers the present value of the fishery using a relevant discount rate to maximise the flow of resource rent over all future catches.[citation needed ]

The Traffic Light colour convention, showing the concept of Harvest Control Rule (HCR), specifying when a rebuilding plan is mandatory in terms of precautionary and limit reference points for spawning biomass and fishing mortality rate.

A model proposed in 2010 for predicting acceptable levels of fishing is the Harvest Control Rule (HCR),[40] which is a set of tools and protocols with which management has some direct control of harvest rates and strategies in relation to predicting stock status, and long-term maximum sustainable yields. Constant catch and constant fishing mortality are two types of simple harvest control rules.[41]

Fishing capacity can also be defined using an input or output orientation.

An input-oriented fishing capacity is defined as the maximum available capital stock in a fishery that is fully utilized at the maximum technical efficiency in a given time period, given resource and market conditions.[42]

An output-oriented fishing capacity is defined as the maximum catch a vessel (fleet) can produce if inputs are fully utilized given the biomass, the fixed inputs, the age structure of the fish stock, and the present stage of technology.[43]

Technical efficiency of each vessel of the fleet is assumed necessary to attain this maximum catch. The degree of capacity utilization results from the comparison of the actual level of output (input) and the capacity output (input) of a vessel or a fleet.[clarification needed ]

In order to meet the problems of overfishing, a precautionary approach and Harvest Control Rule (HCR) management principles have been introduced in the main fisheries around the world. The Traffic Light color convention introduces sets of rules based on predefined critical values, which can be adjusted as more information is gained.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea treaty deals with aspects of overfishing in articles 61, 62, and 65.[44]

Article 61 requires all coastal states to ensure that the maintenance of living resources in their exclusive economic zones is not endangered by over-exploitation. The same article addresses the maintenance or restoration of populations of species above levels at which their reproduction may become seriously threatened.

Article 62 provides that coastal states: "shall promote the objective of optimum utilization of the living resources in the exclusive economic zone without prejudice to Article 61"

Article 65 provides generally for the rights of, inter alia, coastal states to prohibit, limit, or regulate the exploitation of marine mammals.

According to some observers, overfishing can be viewed as an example of the tragedy of the commons; appropriate solutions would therefore promote property rights through, for instance, privatization and fish farming. Daniel K. Benjamin, in Fisheries are Classic Example of the 'Tragedy of the Commons', cites research by Grafton, Squires and Fox to support the idea that privatization can solve the overfishing problem: According to recent research on the British Columbia halibut fishery, where the commons has been at least partly privatized, substantial ecological and economic benefits have resulted. There is less damage to fish stocks, the fishing is safer, and fewer resources are needed to achieve a given harvest."[45]

Another possible solution, at least for some areas, is quotas, restricting fishers to a specific quantity of fish. A more radical possibility is declaring certain areas of the sea " no-go zones" and make fishing there strictly illegal, so the fish have time to recover and repopulate.

In order to maximise resources some countries, e.g., Bangladesh and Thailand, have improved the availability of family planning services. The resulting smaller populations have a decreased environmental footprint and reduced food needs.[46]

Controlling consumer behavior and demand is critical in mitigating action. Worldwide, a number of initiatives emerged to provide consumers with information regarding the conservation status of the seafood available to them. The "Guide to Good Fish Guides" lists a number of these.[47]

Many regulatory measures are available for controlling overfishing. These measures include fishing quotas, bag limits, licensing, closed seasons, size limits and the creation of marine reserves and other marine protected areas.

A model of the interaction between fish and fishers showed that when an area is closed to fishers, but there are no catch regulations such as individual transferable quotas, fish catches are temporarily increased but overall fish biomass is reduced, resulting in the opposite outcome from the one desired for fisheries.[48] Thus, a displacement of the fleet from one locality to another will generally have little effect if the same quota is taken. As a result, management measures such as temporary closures or establishing a marine protected area of fishing areas are ineffective when not combined with individual fishing quotas. An inherent problem with quotas is that fish populations vary from year to year. A study has found that fish populations rise dramatically after stormy years due to more nutrients reaching the surface and therefore greater primary production.[49] To fish sustainably, quotas need to be changed each year to account for fish population.

Individual transferable quotas (ITQs) are fishery rationalization instruments defined under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act as limited access permits to harvest quantities of fish. Fisheries scientists decide the optimal amount of fish ( total allowable catch) to be harvested in a certain fishery. The decision considers carrying capacity, regeneration rates and future values. Under ITQs, members of a fishery are granted rights to a percentage of the total allowable catch that can be harvested each year. These quotas can be fished, bought, sold, or leased allowing for the least-cost vessels to be used. ITQs are used in New Zealand, Australia, Iceland, Canada, and the United States.

In 2008, a large-scale study of fisheries that used ITQs compared to ones that didn't provided strong evidence that ITQs can help to prevent collapses and restore fisheries that appear to be in decline.[50][51][52][53]

China bans fishing in the South China Sea for a period each year.[54]

Because government provided financial subsidies can make it economically viable to fish beyond biologically sustainable levels, several scientists have called for an end to fishery subsidies paid to deep-sea fisheries. In international waters beyond the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones of coastal countries, many fisheries are unregulated, and fishing fleets plunder the depths with state-of-the-art technology. In a few hours, massive nets weighing up to 15 tons, dragged along the bottom by deep-water trawlers, can destroy deep-sea corals and sponge beds that have taken centuries or millennia to grow. The trawlers can target orange roughy, grenadiers, or sharks. These fish are usually long-lived and late maturing, and their populations take decades, even centuries to recover.[55]

Fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly and economist Ussif Rashid Sumaila have examined subsidies paid to bottom trawl fleets around the world. They found that US$152 million per year are paid to deep-sea fisheries. Without these subsidies, global deep-sea fisheries would operate at a loss of US$50 million a year. A great deal of the subsidies paid to deep-sea trawlers is to subsidize the large amount of fuel required to travel beyond the 200 mile limit and drag weighted nets.[55]

"There is surely a better way for governments to spend money than by paying subsidies to a fleet that burns 1.1 billion litres of fuel annually to maintain paltry catches of old growth fish from highly vulnerable stocks, while destroying their habitat in the process" - Pauly.[55]

"Eliminating global subsidies would render these fleets economically unviable and would relieve tremendous pressure on over-fishing and vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems" - Sumaila.[55]

Over 30 billion euros in public subsidies are directed to fisheries annually.[56][57]

Fishing techniques may be altered to minimize bycatch and reduce impacts on marine habitats. These techniques include using varied gear types depending on target species and habitat type. For example, a net with larger holes will allow undersized fish to avoid capture. A turtle excluder device (TED) allows sea turtles and other megafauna to escape from shrimp trawls. Avoiding fishing in spawning grounds may allow fish stocks to rebuild by giving adults a chance to reproduce.

World capture fisheries and aquaculture production by species group, from FAO's Statistical Yearbook 2020[5]

Aquaculture involves the farming of fish in captivity. This approach effectively privatizes fish stocks and creates incentives for farmers to conserve their stocks. It also reduces environmental impact. However, farming carnivorous fish, such as salmon, does not always reduce pressure on wild fisheries, since carnivorous farmed fish are usually fed fishmeal and fish oil extracted from wild forage fish. The various species of Pacific salmon and Atlantic salmon are relatively easy to raise in captivity and such aquacultural operations have existed for more than 150 years. Largescale releases of salmon raised in captivity to supplement wild salmon runs will usually increase fishing pressure on the much less abundant wild salmon runs.

Aquaculture played a minor role in the harvesting of marine organisms until the 1970s. Growth in aquaculture increased rapidly in the 1990s when the rate of wild capture plateaued. Aquaculture now provides approximately half of all harvested aquatic organisms. Aquaculture production rates continue to grow while wild harvest remains steady.

Fish farming can enclose the entire breeding cycle of the fish, with fish being bred in captivity. Some fish prove difficult to breed in captivity and can be caught in the wild as juveniles and brought into captivity to increase their weight. With scientific progress, more species are being made to breed in captivity. This was the case with southern bluefin tuna, which were first bred in captivity in 2009.[58]

As global citizens become more aware of overfishing and the ecological destruction of the oceans, movements have sprung up to encourage abstinence[59]-not eating any seafood-or eating only "sustainable seafood".

Sustainable seafood is a movement that has gained momentum as more people become aware of overfishing and environmentally destructive fishing methods. Sustainable seafood is seafood from either fished or farmed sources that can maintain or increase production in the future without jeopardizing the ecosystems from which it was acquired. In general, slow-growing fish that reproduce late in life, such as orange roughy, are vulnerable to overfishing. Seafood species that grow quickly and breed young, such as anchovies and sardines, are much more resistant to overfishing. Several organizations, including the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), and Friend of the Sea, certify seafood fisheries as sustainable.[citation needed ]

The Marine Stewardship Council has developed an environmental standard for sustainable and well-managed fisheries. Environmentally responsible fisheries management and practices are rewarded with the use of its blue product ecolabel. Consumers concerned about overfishing and its consequences are increasingly able to choose seafood products that have been independently assessed against the MSC's environmental standard. This enables consumers to play a part in reversing the decline of fish stocks. As of February 2012, over 100 fisheries around the world have been independently assessed and certified as meeting the MSC standard. Their where-to-buy page lists the currently available certified seafood. As of February 2012, over 13,000 MSC-labelled products are available in 74 countries around the world. Fish & Kids is an MSC project to teach schoolchildren about marine environmental issues, including overfishing.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program, although not an official certifying body like the MSC, also provides guidance on the sustainability of certain fish species.[60] Some seafood restaurants have begun to offer more sustainable seafood options. The Seafood Choices Alliance[61] is an organization whose members include chefs that serve sustainable seafood at their establishments. In the US, the Sustainable Fisheries Act defines sustainable practices through national standards. Although there is no official certifying body like the MSC, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has created FishWatch to help guide concerned consumers to sustainable seafood choices.

In September 2016, a partnership of Google and Oceana and Skytruth introduced Global Fishing Watch, a website designed to assist citizens of the globe in monitoring fishing activities.[62][63][64]

The United Nations has included sustainable fishing and ending subsidies that contribute to overfishing as key targets for 2030 as part of their Sustainable Development Goal 14 called "Life Below Water".[65]

The fishing industry has a strong financial incentive to oppose some measures aimed at improving the sustainability of fish stocks.[4] Recreational fisherman also have an interest in maintaining access to fish stocks. This leads to extensive lobbying that can block or weaken government policies intended to prevent overfishing.

Outside of countries' exclusive economic zones, fishing is difficult to control. Large oceangoing fishing boats are free to exploit fish stocks at will.[66]

In waters that are the subject of territorial disputes, countries may actively encourage overfishing. A notable example is the cod wars where Britain used its navy to protect its trawlers fishing in Iceland's exclusive economic zone.[citation needed ] Fish are highly transitory. Many species will freely move through different jurisdictions. The conservation efforts of one country can then be exploited by another.

While governments can create regulations to control people's behaviors this can be undermined by illegal fishing activity. Estimates of the size of the illegal catch range from 11 to 26 million tonnes, which represents 14-33% of the world's reported catch.[67] Illegal fishing can take many forms. In some developing countries, large numbers of poor people are dependent on fishing. It can prove difficult to regulate this kind of overfishing, especially for weak governments. Even in regulated environments, illegal fishing may occur. While industrial fishing is often effectively controlled, smaller scale and recreational fishermen can often break regulations such as bag limits and seasonal closures. Fisherman can also easily fish illegally by doing things such as underreporting the amount of fish they caught or reporting that they caught one type of fish while actually catching another.[68] There is also a large problem with the surveillance of illegal fishing activity.[69] In 2001, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), passed the International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IPOA-IUU). This is an agreement with the intention to stop port states from allowing boats to dock that participated in illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing. It also gives details for port states on effective measures of inspecting and reporting illegal fishing.[70] Some illegal fishing takes place on an industrial scale with financed commercial operations.[citation needed ]

The fishing capacity problem is not only related to the conservation of fish stocks but also to the sustainability of fishing activity. Causes of the fishing problem can be found in the property rights regime of fishing resources. Overexploitation and rent dissipation of fishermen arise in open-access fisheries as was shown in Gordon.[71][72]

In open-access resources like fish stocks, in the absence of a system like individual transferable quotas, the impossibility of excluding others provokes the fishermen who want to increase catch to do so effectively by taking someone else' share, intensifying competition. This tragedy of the commons provokes a capitalization process that leads them to increase their costs until they are equal to their revenue, dissipating their rent completely.[citation needed ]

There is always disagreement between fishermen and government scientists... Imagine an overfished area of the sea in the shape of a hockey field with nets at either end. The few fish left therein would gather around the goals because fish like structured habitats. Scientists would survey the entire field, make lots of unsuccessful hauls, and conclude that it contains few fish. The fishermen would make a beeline to the goals, catch the fish around them, and say the scientists do not know what they are talking about. The subjective impression the fishermen get is always that there's lots of fish - because they only go to places that still have them... fisheries scientists survey and compare entire areas, not only the productive fishing spots. - Fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly [73]

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8. ^ How does overfishing threaten coral reefs? NOAA: National Ocean Service. Updated: 4 February 2020.

9. Pauly 1983

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43. ^ Boyes, Margaret (March 2008). "An interview with Daniel Pauly" (PDF). Fisherman Life.

Costello, Christopher; Gaines, Steven D; Lynham, John (2008). "Can Catch Shares Prevent Fisheries Collapse?". Science. 321 (5896): 1678-1681. Bibcode:2008Sci...321.1678C. doi:10.1126/science.1159478. PMID 18801999. S2CID 24879449.

Kurlansky, Mark (1997). "11-12". Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. New York: Walker. ISBN 978-0-8027-1326-1.

Moustakas, A; Silvert, W; Dimitromanolakis, A (2006). "A spatially explicit learning model of migratory fish and fishers for evaluating closed areas" (PDF). Ecological Modelling. 192 (1-2): 245-258. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2005.07.007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 March 2012.

Pauly, Daniel (1983). Some simple methods for the assessment of tropical fish stocks. FAO Fisheries technical paper 234. ISBN 978-92-5-101333-5.

Roberts, Callum (2007) The Unnatural History of the Sea Island Press. ISBN 978-1-59726-102-9

Young, Margaret (2011). Trading Fish, Saving Fish: The Interaction between Regimes in International Law. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521765725.

This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO ( license statement/permission). Text taken from In brief, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, 2018​, FAO, FAO.

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Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area.

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Humans are completely careless when it comes to disposing of their waste. Many fresh water rivers, streams, and lakes are polluted. Most these fresh waterways are being polluted with things like plastics and other materials that humans have just thrown out. However, some fresh water rivers are being polluted by human sewage and animal excrement

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The majority of chocolate is made in West Africa. They are made by child slavery, literally made by slave children. To West African farmers, producing chocolate isn't worth it anymore.  It takes 5 years to grow a new crop and the children only earn around 80 cents a day. Choclate is projected to become rare enough to be like caviar. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11629757/Is-the-world-really-running-out-of-chocolate.html

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About 18 million acres of forests are being destroyed each year because of the growing population of humans. Already half of the world's forests are cleared. Some things that cause this problem are logging, urbanization and agriculture.
http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/consequences_of_depletion_of_natural_resources

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Humans have greatly impacted the surface of the Earth. Our agricultural and building advancements have caused us to completely re-invent the ground that we stand on.

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The US uses plastics to create a variety of products, for example, The US alone uses around 100 billion plastic bag which creates major problems for nature. Every day in Los Angles, around 10 metric tons of plastic fragments are taken into the ocean and never seen again.

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Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis. Billions of pounds of plastic can be found in swirling convergences that make up about 40 percent of the world's ocean surfaces. At current rates plastic is expected to outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050.

Plastics pollution has a direct and deadly effect on wildlife. Thousands of seabirds and sea turtles, seals and other marine mammals are killed each year after ingesting plastic or getting entangled in it. Endangered wildlife like Hawaiian monk seals and Pacific loggerhead sea turtles are among nearly 700 species that eat and get caught in plastic litter.

It's time to get at the root of this ocean crisis. The Center has petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to begin regulating plastics as a pollutant and is working to stop plastic pollution at the source, before it ever has a chance to reach the ocean.

THE PLASTIC PROBLEM

We're surrounded by plastic. It's in the single-use packaging we discard, the consumer goods that fill our stores, and in our clothing, which sheds microplastic fibers in the wash.

In the first decade of this century, we made more plastic than all the plastic in history up to the year 2000. And every year, billions of pounds of more plastic end up in the world's oceans. Studies estimate there are now 15-51 trillionpieces of plastic in the world's oceans - from the equator to the poles, from Arctic ice sheets to the sea floor. Not one square mile of surface ocean anywhere on earth is free of plastic pollution.

The problem is growing into a crisis. The fossil fuel industry plans to increase plastic production by 40 percent over the next decade. These oil giants are rapidly building petrochemical plants across the United States to turn fracked gas into plastic. This means more toxic air pollution and plastic in our oceans.

We need urgent action to address the global plastic pollution epidemic.

Unfortunately, plastic is so durable that the EPA reports "every bit of plastic ever made still exists." All five of the Earth's major ocean gyres are inundated with plastic pollution. The largest one has been dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

A HEAVY TOLL ON WILDLIFE

Thousands of animals, from small finches to blue whales, die grisly deaths from eating and getting caught in plastic.

Fish in the North Pacific ingest 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic each year, which can cause intestinal injury and death and transfers plastic up the food chain to bigger fish, marine mammals and human seafood eaters. A recent study found that a quarter of fish at markets in California contained plastic in their guts, mostly in the form of plastic microfibers.

Sea turtles can mistake floating plastic garbage for food. They can choke, sustain internal injury and die - or starve by thinking they're full from eating plastic. Tragically, research indicates that half of sea turtles worldwide have ingested plastic. New studies find plastic pollution is so pervasive on many beaches that its affecting their reproduction.

Hundreds of thousands of seabirds ingest plastic every year. Plastic ingestion reduces the storage volume of the stomach, causing starvation. It's estimated that 60 percent of all seabird species have eaten pieces of plastic, with that number predicted to increase to 99 percent by 2050. Dead seabirds are often found with stomachs full of plastic, reflecting how the amount of garbage in our oceans has rapidly increased in the past 40 years.

Marine mammals ingest, and get tangled up in, plastic. Large amounts of plastic debris have been found in the habitat of critically endangered Hawaiian monk seals, including in areas that serve as pup nurseries. Entanglement in plastic debris has also led to injury and mortality in the endangered Steller sea lion, with packing bands the most common entangling material. Dead whales have been found with bellies full of plastic.

FIGHTING OCEAN PLASTIC POLLUTION

The Center for Biological Diversity is tackling this problem on multiple fronts. We've petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking the government to regulate plastics as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act and will keep pushing for plastic pollution to be treated as the hazardous waste that it is.

We've sued companies that turn plastic into consumer goods to better control their runoff. We're challenging the permits needed to build those new ethane cracker plants and organizing grassroots resistance to stop them

There's still a lot of work to do, but we're committed to the long struggle to reduce ocean plastic pollution.

Check out our press releases to learn more about the Center's actions for oceans.

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Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis, with a direct and deadly effect on wildlife. The Center is working to stop plastic pollution at the source.

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Humans build oil drills into the ocean but occasionally these drills cause spills and millions of gallons of oil are realeased into the ocean.
http://www.water-pollution.org.uk/inthehome.html

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Our usage of paper around the globe is a huge problem. Fortunately, it has died down due to the invention of smartphones, tablets, etc.. The cost of these devices continue to increase, leaving people resorting to paper (a more reasonable cost). The high demand greatly affects our trees  that the paper is produced from. Thirty five percent of the trees cut down in the world are used to make paper. (Martin

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Take a minute to look around the room you're in and notice how many things are made out of paper. There may be books, a few magazines, some printer paper, and perhaps a poster on the wall. Yet, if you consider that each person in the United States uses 749 pounds (340kg) of paper every year (adding up to a whopping 187 billion pounds (85 billion kg) per year for the entire population, by far the largest per capita consumption rate of paper for any country in the world), then you realize that paper comes in many more forms than meets the eye.

World consumption of paper has grown 400 percent in the last 40 years. Now nearly 4 billion trees or 35 percent of the total trees cut around the world are used in paper industries on every continent. Besides what you can see around you, paper comes in many forms from tissue paper to cardboard packaging to stereo speakers to electrical plugs to home insulation to the sole inserts in your tennis shoes. In short, paper is everywhere.

Where Does the Paper Come From?

So where does it come from? Most people can guess that trees are the staple of any paper product. But did you know that until the middle of the 19th century, the main ingredient of paper was cloth rags? And while trees have since become a vital component in the creation of paper, many manufacturers today are beginning to use recycled waste combined with tree pulp to decrease the number of trees that need to be cut down and keep up with the growing demand for paper. Also, many environmentalists who believe that the world's forests are being cut down faster than they can grow are pointing to the continued success of wood-free paper made with other plants such as hemp and a similarly fibrous plant called kenaf.

The First Paper...

The first paper-like substance was invented by the Egyptians over 6,000 years ago. Papyrus, which is the root of our English word paper, was made by weaving reeds or other fibrous plants together and pounding them into a flat sheet. The Greeks and the Romans also used this technique, although some Ancient Greek paper makers were the first to create a kind of parchment paper made out of animal skins. Chances are, Aristotle, Socrates and other Greek philosophers originally wrote their books on the skins of dead cows.

But paper as we know it wasn't made until 105 AD, when a Chinese court official named Ts'ai Lun mixed mulberry bark and hemp with water and scraps of cotton and linen cloth (i.e. rags). This concoction was mashed into a pulp and pressed into mats that were left in the sun to dry. Rags were the basis for paper for the next 1700 years.

As the Chinese culture flourished and expanded to the edges of the Asian continent, paper went along with it, first to Korea and Japan and then to the Arab world which included Egypt and Morocco. Yet, it wasn't until 1009 AD that Papermaking reached Europe by way of Spain, where the first European paper mill was set up by Arabs in Xativa, near the Mediterranean port city of Valencia.

After that, the Italians and the French became notable paper makers and dominated the paper industry in Europe from 1250 to 1470 AD. After the invention of the moveable type printing press in 1453 by the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg and the subsequent boom in literacy rates in the 16th century, paper for books grew in demand. Paper mills began opening all over the European continent and eventually reached the new world where the first American paper mill opened in Philadelphia in 1690. That increase in demand and the upsurge in papermaking began to tax the raw materials used to make paper (which was still largely made with rags) and manufacturers began searching for alternatives. It wasn't until 1843 that ground-wood (or pulp) harvested from trees became the papermakers material of choice.

The Modern Industry

Today, the world consumes about 300 million tons of paper each year. Most of that paper is made from virgin pulp, but recycled paper accounts for 38 percent of the world's total fiber supply and non-wood fibers from plants like hemp or kenaf make up 7 percent. The U.S., which contains only 5 percent of the world's population, uses 30 percent of all paper. In that country, the forest and paper products industry generates $200 billion dollars in sales every year, accounting for 7 percent of the total manufacturing output of the United States. About 28 percent of all wood cut in the U.S. is used for papermaking.

Having come a long way from using rags and mulberry bark, papermaking has become a sophisticated science. Once a tree is cut down, it goes to a mill where it is debarked and then chipped into tiny fragments by a series of whirling blades. These fragments are then "cooked" in a vat with water and several chemicals, including caustic soda and sodium sulfate, to make a gooey slurry known as pulp. In the final stages, additives such as starch, China clay, talc and calcium carbonate are added to the pulp to improve the strength and brightness of the paper. Then the pulp is bleached to a white color using water and chlorine before being pressed into rolls and dried.

The Environmental Impact

Unfortunately, the papermaking process is not a clean one. According to the U.S. Toxic Release Inventory report published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pulp and paper mills are among the worst polluters to air, water and land of any industry in the country. The Worldwatch Institute offers similar statistics for the rest of the world. Each year millions of pounds of highly toxic chemicals such as toluene, methanol, chlorine dioxide, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde are released into the air and water from papermaking plants around the world.

Papermaking also uses up vast quantities of trees. But trees are a renewable resource, which means that once one is cut down another can be planted in its place. In fact, much of the wood used by paper companies in the U.S. comes from privately owned tree farms, where forests are planted, groomed and thinned for harvest in 20 to 35 year cycles, depending on the tree species. Around the world, tree farms supply 16 percent of all wood used in the paper industry, while the bulk comes from second growth forests. Less than 9 percent of the wood used to make paper is harvested from old growth forests, which are impossible to replace because of their maturity.

Yet, while tree farms or plantations help feed the demand for wood, they can't provide the plant and animal diversity found in natural forests. Plus, according to a 1996 report from the U.S. Forest Service, the rate of harvest for softwood trees in the southern United States outpaced growth for the first time since 1953.

Alternatives to Cutting Down Trees

For these reasons, there is a growing chorus of entrepreneurs, environmentalists and inventors who are coming up with ways to make paper without having to use as many chemicals or so many trees. Recycling is by far the most common way to help save a tree. According to the Worldwatch Institute, recycling efforts around the world recovered about 110 million tons, or 43 percent, of all paper used. About 60 percent of all paper in the United States was kept out of landfills in 2009 and in 2010, 77 percent of all papermakers in the U.S. substitute some recycled paper for virgin wood in the pulp-making stage. And 115 mills use only recycled waste as their primary source of raw material.

Others point to agricultural waste as a stand in for wood. Agri-pulp, as it's called, is wheat, oat, barley and other crop stalks left over after harvesting. Combined with recycled paper and other fillers, some paper makers are finding that agri-pulp paper makes fine stationery.

Hemp is a wood substitute that has a rich history in the papermaking industry, from paper's origins in China in the first century AD to the Declaration of Independence, which was written in the 18th century on hemp paper. Hemp is now used to make rope and clothes as well as paper. Unfortunately, it is illegal to grow hemp in the U.S. because it is a non-intoxicating variety of cannabis sativa, the same plant marijuana comes from. For that reason, hemp must be imported for use in the U.S.

Kenaf is also known as an excellent tree-substitute in making paper. This 4,000-year-old hibiscus plant - an annual, non-wood fiber plant related to okra and cotton - is native to central Africa and can grow up to 18 feet tall in a four -to-five month season. Like hemp, kenaf is naturally whiter than wood and can be bleached with hydrogen peroxide instead of chlorine.

One of the major reasons paper mills are hesitant to convert to using kenaf or hemp to make paper is because they are not set up to process anything except trees. Converting a paper mill to process these wood pulp alternatives would cost tens of millions of dollars and major coordination with their suppliers and customers.

Still - like the conversion of radio to television as the major entertainment source in the 1950s and 1960s - such a conversion from trees to non-wood source materials in the papermaking process can ultimately provide extraordinary economics for the manufacturers and the consumers. It's simply a matter of the different groups within the industry agreeing on how to best make it happen. And it's going to take consumers like you and me to start buying recycled products as well as alternative pulp.

What's certain is that with so much of our daily lives dependent on the material, paper is here to stay. Even email and the Internet haven't slowed this demand. And yet, as research advances and the environmental impact lessens, perhaps we'll be able to live comfortably with paper for the next six thousand years.
Updated September 10, 2011 by Susan Colby
Did You Know...

The first paper merchant in America was Benjamin Franklin, who helped to start 18 paper mills in Virginia and surrounding areas.

Wood pulp is found in rayon material, laundry detergent, tires, and transmission belts.

The trees used to make paper in the United States come mostly from softwood forests-mostly pine-in the South and West.

In 1883 Philadelphia resident Charles Stillwell invented a machine to make brown paper bags so folks would have something to carry their groceries home in. Today more than 10 million paper bags are used annually in supermarkets throughout the country.

In 2010, recycled paper averaged 334 pounds for every person in the U.S. Hemp was grown commercially in the United States until the 1950s.

The single oldest living thing on Earth is a tree, a 4,700 year-old bristlecone pine tree in Nevada. It was growing when the Egyptians built the pyramids.

There are 747 million acres of forest land in the United States.

More than 2.3 billion tree seedlings are planted in the United States each year.

Other Sources:
The European Paper Industry American Forest and Paper Association The American Tree Farm System Environmental Protection Agency The Worldwatch Institute Boise Cascade Paper: Sustainability Policies About the Kenaf Plant Rainforest Action Network
Conservatree

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Take a minute to look around the room you're in and notice how many things are made out of paper. There may be books, a few magazines, some printer paper, and perhaps a poster on the wall.

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Pollution is the presence in an enviornment in which a substance or thing harmfull and has poisonous effects. Pollution can happen in many ways, there is air pollution, water, land, noise,  and finally light pollution. http://www.livescience.com/22728-pollution-facts.html

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An impact humans have made overpopulation. Since our population keeps growing, we only have so much room. Creating more room is affecting our ecosystem.
http://interestingengineering.com/10-ways-humans-impact-the-environment/

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The Earth's population is on an exponential increase. This is because the number of births in a year is far greater than the number of deaths in a year. This could be prevented if everyone, or at least most people, were only allowed to have 2 kids. This would keep the population under control because the 2 kids would replace the 2 parents, with no extra kids to add to the population over time.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

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Air pollution is one of the biggest impacts humans have made in the U.S. States like California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virgina, hand Indiana have the worst air pollution. In california, Los angles, Fresno, and Bakersfield are ranked in the top ten. Fresno suffers from a trifecta of traffic, sunshine, and agriculture. The ALA says, "breathing pollution near busy roads may not only worsen diseases over time, but also increase the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma, and COPD." Also, the region of San Joaquin ranks amoung the worst for ozone and short-term particles (2nd and 4th).

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11 U.S. Cities With the Worst Air Pollution

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The good news: Air has gotten cleaner in recent years. Now the bad: More than half of people in the U.S. still breathe air dirty enough to cause health problems, according to the American Lung Association.

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Ocean pollution is a big impact from humans. About 1.4 billion pounds of trash enters the ocean per year. Most of that trash gets eaten by marine animals which is mistaken for food. 100,000 sea mammals and 1 million seabirds get killed every year.
http://www.noaa.gov/resource-collections/ocean-pollution

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This article describes how the price of oil is rising due to how much of it is left in the world. The less there is, the more it costs.

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Polishing the portholes on the Titanic hardly does it justice. This week saw ministers giving an uncanny impersonation of Corporal Jones urging calm over the Grangemouth refinery strike; lorry drivers protesting in Park Lane over a two pence rise in fuel duty; and much righteous indignation over the level of profits reported by Shell and BP. All of which entirely misses the point. These issues are trifling compared to global oil depletion, where there have been several distinct turns for the worse in the last month.

The idea that oil companies are somehow 'to blame' for record oil prices and rising fuel costs is seductive but absurd. For all their power and profits, the international oil companies are in fact in trouble. They may still be swimming in cash, but no longer in oil. Despite vast investment in exploration and production, these days they generally fail to replace the oil they produce each year with fresh discoveries, or even to maintain current levels of output. Shell's oil production has been falling for six years, BP's seems to have peaked 2005, and this week even the mighty Exxon was forced to admit its output dropped 10% in the first quarter of the year.

None of this should come as a surprise since all the evidence now suggests the world is rapidly approaching "peak oil", the point when global oil production goes into terminal decline for fundamental geological reasons. Annual discovery of oil has been falling for over forty years, and now for every barrel we find we consume three. Oil production is already shrinking in 60 of the world's 98 oil producing countries - including Britain, where output peaked in 1999 and has already plunged by more than half. When an individual country peaks it only matters for that country - Britain became a net importer of oil in 2006 - but when global supply starts to shrink the effects could be ruinous for everybody.

Analysts divide the oil producing world into two halves: OPEC and the rest. There is broad agreement that non-OPEC oil production will peak or at least plateau by about 2010. ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson said last year that non-OPEC production growth would be all over in "two to three years". That judgment now seems even more certain.

Since the turn of the century non-OPEC oil production has been sustained only by big increases in Russia, the world's largest producer, as the oligarchs that control the industry invested billions refurbishing fields that had been allowed to deteriorate after the collapse of communism. But now the easy gains have gone and growth rates have slumped. This month Leonid Fedun, a senior executive with Lukoil, Russia's second largest oil company, said the country's output had peaked and would never exceed current levels "in his lifetime".

So we now depend on OPEC as never before, and this explains the increasingly shrill pleas from Western officials for the cartel to raise production. But many suspect OPEC could not increase output even if it wanted to - at least not by much - and may also peak soon. There have long been doubts about the true size of OPEC's claimed reserves, which seem to have been falsely - and massively - inflated during the 1980s when members were vying for larger shares in the new quota system. And now there are growing concerns about some of OPEC's most significant producers.

Just last week Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, announced that all plans to expand oil production capacity beyond 2009 had been shelved. The oil minister justified the decision by claiming that, given the economic outlook, there would be no demand for the additional oil - which is arguable but unlikely. Even the mildly skeptical will suspect the move was not entirely voluntary.

In Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, output has already fallen 20% because of repeated attacks by militants in the Niger delta. But now a recent report by the government's energy advisers has concluded that even if investment is maintained at current levels "total oil and gas production will decline by 30 per cent from its current level by 2015".

The one OPEC member which undoubtedly has large untapped oil resources is Iraq, but here the continuing butchery and failure to agree a new law governing oil and gas production makes any early increase highly unlikely.

In these circumstances it is no surprise that the oil price has soared to record levels - almost $120 earlier this week - nor that many now predict a further pole-vault to $200, including the EU's Energy Commissioner, the President of OPEC, and city analysts Goldman Sachs. What is surprising is the number of apparently intelligent people who cleave to fanciful explanations for the oil price rise, such as speculation and the weakness of the dollar.

No doubt these factors play a part, but the simple fact is that global oil production - including non-conventional sources, biofuels and the kitchen sink - has remained essentially flat since early 2005. For three years the oil supply has been a zero sum game in which if one country consumes more, another has to consume less. Since so much of the demand growth comes from the developing world or OPEC members themselves, oil demand will probably continue to grow despite the gathering recession in the West. It is shortage that makes oil futures so attractive to investors.

And yet the British government's central forecast is that oil will cost $57 per barrel in 2010 and fall to $53 by 2020. This absurd prediction is incomprehensible until you consider the political realities: even more than climate change, peak oil demands that governments confront voters with uncomfortable truths that will impact living standards. In Whitehall, legs will remain crossed and buttocks clenched as politicians and officials pray it doesn't happen in their term of office, or before they draw their inflation-linked pension.

So Gordon Brown's website blithely proclaims "...the world's oil and gas resources are sufficient to sustain economic growth for the foreseeable future", despite all evidence to the contrary. Still, perhaps he can say this with some confidence; the way things are going, his foreseeable future is not all that long.

David Strahan is the author of The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man, published by John Murray Ltd. www.lastoilshock.com

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Polishing the portholes on the Titanic hardly does it justice. This week saw ministers giving an uncanny impersonation of Corporal Jones urging calm over the Grangemouth refinery strike; lorry drivers protesting in Park Lane over a two pence rise in fuel duty; and much righteous indignation over the level of profits reported by Shell and BP.

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Because coal is made from the remains of dinosaurs and plants it takes a long time to make for coal. When we are using tons and tons of coal all of those reserves are going to desapear.
It is estimated that we have enough coal to last 110 years.
https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-coal-found

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Air pollution can be caused by the burning of fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

http://eschooltoday.com/pollution/air-pollution/effects-of-air-pollution.html

http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/How-Does-Pollution-Affect-Humans

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There are about 7 billion people on earth. The more humans there are, the more space they take up. More humans also mean more using earth's natural resources and the supply is decreasing.

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Over six billion people live on planet Earth. As the population grows, we are taking more and more land to live and using more of the world's natural

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There are many different types of pollution on Earth, caused by humans. It can be air, noise, water, light, and soil. However, the most destructive pollution is air pollution, which comes from the smoke from cars, trucks, buses, trains and factories. This makes it harderto get clean air and we breathe in chemicals and smoke that contaminates our lungs.

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health issues and environmental pollution

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pictures of the effects of environmental pollution

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Environmental pollution is one of the greatest problems that the world is facing today causing grave and irreparable damage to the earth, damaged atmosphere and depleted ozone layer leading to global warming. Environmental pollution consists of five basic types of pollution, namely, air, water, soil, noise and light.

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1/4 of all rivers run dry before they ever reach the ocean. Additionally, rivers dry up before they reach lakes, decreasing water levels in lakes as well.

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Air pollution has impacted our Earth by trapping gas in the atmosphere causing global warming, our allergies to react, and hazardous effects on our bodies.

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Air pollution refers to the release of pollutants into the air-pollutants that are detrimental to human health and the planet as a whole. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) , each year, indoor and outdoor air pollution is responsible for nearly seven million deaths around the globe. Ninety-nine percent of human beings currently breathe air that exceeds the WHO's guideline limits for pollutants, with those living in low- and middle-income countries suffering the most. In the United States, the Clean Air Act , established in 1970, authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to safeguard public health by regulating the emissions of these harmful air pollutants.

What Causes Air Pollution?

"Most air pollution comes from energy use and production," says , director of the Clean Air team at NRDC. Driving a car on gasoline, heating a home with oil, running a power plant on fracked gas : In each case, a fossil fuel is burned and harmful chemicals and gases are released into the air.

"We've made progress over the last 50 years in improving air quality in the United States, thanks to the Clean Air Act. But climate change will make it harder in the future to meet pollution standards, which are designed to protect health ," says Walke.

Air pollution is now the world's fourth-largest risk factor for early death. According to the 2020 State of Global Air report -which summarizes the latest scientific understanding of air pollution around the world-4.5 million deaths were linked to outdoor air pollution exposures in 2019, and another 2.2 million deaths were caused by indoor air pollution. The world's most populous countries, China and India, continue to bear the highest burdens of disease.

The effects of air pollution on the human body vary, depending on the type of pollutant, the length and level of exposure, and other factors, including a person's individual health risks and the cumulative impacts of multiple pollutants or stressors.

Smog and soot

These are the two most prevalent types of air pollution. Smog (sometimes referred to as ground-level ozone) occurs when emissions from combusting fossil fuels react with sunlight. Soot-a type of particulate matter -is made up of tiny particles of chemicals, soil, smoke, dust, or allergens that are carried in the air. The sources of smog and soot are similar. "Both come from cars and trucks, factories, power plants, incinerators, engines, generally anything that combusts fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline, or natural gas," Walke says.

Smog can irritate the eyes and throat and also damage the lungs, especially those of children, senior citizens, and people who work or exercise outdoors. It's even worse for people who have asthma or allergies; these extra pollutants can intensify their symptoms and trigger asthma attacks. The tiniest airborne particles in soot are especially dangerous because they can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream and worsen bronchitis, lead to heart attacks, and even hasten death. In 2020, a report from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed that COVID-19 mortality rates were higher in areas with more particulate matter pollution than in areas with even slightly less, showing a correlation between the virus's deadliness and long-term exposure to air pollution.

Hazardous air pollutants

Another category of toxic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are by-products of traffic exhaust and wildfire smoke. In large amounts, they have been linked to eye and lung irritation, blood and liver issues, and even cancer. In one study , the children of mothers exposed to PAHs during pregnancy showed slower brain-processing speeds and more pronounced symptoms of ADHD.

Greenhouse gases

While these climate pollutants don't have the direct or immediate impacts on the human body associated with other air pollutants, like smog or hazardous chemicals, they are still harmful to our health. By trapping the earth's heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases lead to warmer temperatures, which in turn lead to the hallmarks of climate change: rising sea levels, more extreme weather, heat-related deaths, and the increased transmission of infectious diseases. In 2021, carbon dioxide accounted for roughly 79 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions, and methane made up more than 11 percent. "Carbon dioxide comes from combusting fossil fuels, and methane comes from natural and industrial sources, including large amounts that are released during oil and gas drilling," Walke says. "We emit far larger amounts of carbon dioxide, but methane is significantly more potent, so it's also very destructive."

Pollen and mold

Mold and allergens from trees, weeds, and grass are also carried in the air, are exacerbated by climate change, and can be hazardous to health. Though they aren't regulated, they can be considered a form of air pollution. "When homes, schools, or businesses get water damage, mold can grow and produce allergenic airborne pollutants," says Kim Knowlton, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University and a former NRDC scientist. " Mold exposure can precipitate asthma attacks or an allergic response, and some molds can even produce toxins that would be dangerous for anyone to inhale."

Pollen allergies are worsening because of climate change . "Lab and field studies are showing that pollen-producing plants-especially ragweed-grow larger and produce more pollen when you increase the amount of carbon dioxide that they grow in," Knowlton says. "Climate change also extends the pollen production season, and some studies are beginning to suggest that ragweed pollen itself might be becoming a more potent allergen." If so, more people will suffer runny noses, fevers, itchy eyes, and other symptoms. "And for people with allergies and asthma, pollen peaks can precipitate asthma attacks, which are far more serious and can be life-threatening."

Air Pollution in the United States

More than one in three U.S. residents-120 million people-live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to the by the American Lung Association (ALA). Since the annual report was first published, in 2000, its findings have shown how the Clean Air Act has been able to reduce harmful emissions from transportation, power plants, and manufacturing.

Recent findings, however, reflect how climate change-fueled wildfires and extreme heat are adding to the challenges of protecting public health. The latest report-which focuses on ozone, year-round particle pollution, and short-term particle pollution-also finds that people of color are 61 percent more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade in at least one of those categories, and three times more likely to live in a county that fails in all three.

In rankings for each of the three pollution categories covered by the ALA report, California cities occupy the top three slots (i.e., were highest in pollution), despite progress that the Golden State has made in reducing air pollution emissions in the past half century. At the other end of the spectrum, these cities consistently rank among the country's best for air quality: Burlington, Vermont; Honolulu; and Wilmington, North Carolina.

Air Pollution and Environmental Justice

No one wants to live next door to an incinerator, oil refinery, port, toxic waste dump, or other polluting site. Yet millions of people around the world do, and this puts them at a much higher risk for respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, neurological damage, cancer, and death. In the United States, people of color are 1.5 times more likely than whites to live in areas with poor air quality, according to the ALA.

Historically, racist zoning policies and discriminatory lending practices known as have combined to keep polluting industries and car-choked highways away from white neighborhoods and have turned communities of color-especially low-income and working-class communities of color-into sacrifice zones, where residents are forced to breathe dirty air and suffer the many health problems associated with it. In addition to the increased health risks that come from living in such places, the polluted air can economically harm residents in the form of missed workdays and higher medical costs.

Environmental racism isn't limited to cities and industrial areas. Outdoor laborers, including the estimated three million migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States, are among the most vulnerable to air pollution-and they're also among the least equipped, politically, to pressure employers and lawmakers to affirm their right to breathe clean air.

Recently, cumulative impact mapping , which uses data on environmental conditions and demographics, has been able to show how some communities are overburdened with layers of issues, like high levels of poverty, unemployment, and pollution. Tools like the Environmental Justice Screening Method and the EPA's provide evidence of what many environmental justice communities have been explaining for decades: that we need land use and public health reforms to ensure that vulnerable areas are not overburdened and that the people who need resources the most are receiving them.

Controlling Air Pollution

In the United States, the Clean Air Act has been a crucial tool for reducing air pollution since its passage in 1970, although fossil fuel interests aided by industry-friendly lawmakers have frequently attempted to its many protections. Ensuring that this bedrock environmental law remains intact and properly enforced will always be key to maintaining and improving our air quality.

But the best, most effective way to control air pollution is to speed up our transition to cleaner fuels and industrial processes. By switching over to renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar power), maximizing fuel efficiency in our vehicles, and replacing more and more of our gasoline-powered cars and trucks with electric versions, we'll be limiting air pollution at its source while also curbing the global warming that heightens so many of its worst health impacts.

And what about the economic costs of controlling air pollution? According to a report on the Clean Air Act commissioned by NRDC, the annual benefits of cleaner air are up to 32 times greater than the cost of clean air regulations. Those benefits include up to 370,000 avoided premature deaths, 189,000 fewer hospital admissions for cardiac and respiratory illnesses, and net economic benefits of up to $3.8 trillion for the U.S. economy every year.

How to Help Reduce Air Pollution

"The less gasoline we burn, the better we're doing to reduce air pollution and the harmful effects of climate change," Walke explains. "Make good choices about transportation. When you can, ride a bike, walk, or take public transportation. For driving, choose a car that gets better miles per gallon of gas or buy an electric car ." You can also investigate your power provider options-you may be able to request that your electricity be supplied by wind or solar. Buying your food locally cuts down on the fossil fuels burned in trucking or flying food in from across the world. And most important: "Support leaders who push for clean air and water and responsible steps on climate change," Walke says.

How to Protect Your Health

"When you see in the news or hear on the weather report that pollution levels are high, it may be useful to limit the time when children go outside or you go for a jog," Walke says. Generally, ozone levels tend to be lower in the morning.

If you exercise outside, stay as far as you can from heavily trafficked roads. Then shower and wash your clothes to remove fine particles.

The air may look clear, but that doesn't mean it's pollution free. Utilize tools like the EPA's air pollution monitor, , to get the latest conditions. If the air quality is bad, stay inside with the windows closed.

If you live or work in an area that's prone to wildfires, stay away from the harmful smoke as much as you're able. Consider keeping a small stock of masks to wear when conditions are poor. The most ideal masks for smoke particles will be labelled "NIOSH" (which stands for National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) and have either "N95" or "P100" printed on it.

If you're using an air conditioner while outdoor pollution conditions are bad, use the recirculating setting to limit the amount of polluted air that gets inside.

This story was originally published on November 1, 2016, and has been updated with new information and links.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can't resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can't republish our material wholesale or automatically-you need to select stories individually; you can't republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should to let us know when you've used one of our stories.

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Air Pollution: Everything You Need to Know

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The effects of air pollution wreck havoc on human health and our planet as a whole. Learn about what causes air pollution and how to help reduce the effects.

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So far, most of the world runs on fossil fuels. Slowly our coal/ fuel reserves are running dry. This will soon force us to use different sources of power. Such as: wind, nuclear, and solar power. (Fossil fuels are found everwhere-> no specific location) https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves

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Phosphorus is an essential ingredient in soil and plants need it to grow. Because it is only found in certain areas in few countries, it is predicted that a shortage of phosphorus could occur in the next 100 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six-natural-resources-population

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Desertification causes fertile land to become dry and unfertile. Desertification can be caused by global warming. The increasing heat drys up land  once suitable for farmland and everyday life.

http://desertificationb.tripod.com/id3.html

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Californians have been over using water for many years. It has finally caught up to us and we got ourselves deeply into a drought. However with the cut down of water use through laws, we are no longer in that condition
Lexi Lindgren

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California Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey

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The USGS closely monitors the effects of drought through data collection and research. USGS science supports water managers in preparing for possible future drought by providing information that takes into account long-term hydrologic, climatic, and environmental changes. These studies support successful planning and science-based decision-making by water managers who must address complex issues and competing interests in times of drought.

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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This article describes the decline of deforestation and rainforest clear-cutting since 2000. However, they also claim that Africa's loss of forest is faster than that of the Congo's. Import of cereal is reducing the demand of land for farming. - Mr. Isaacson.

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.

The special issue, which was put together by Yadvinder Malhi, Stephen Adu-Bredu, Rebecca Asare, Simon Lewis and Philippe Mayaux, covers a range of issues relating to the rainforests of the Congo Basin, including deforestation, the impacts of global change, the history and key characteristics of the region's forests, and resource extraction, among others.

With 178 million hectares of rainforests, the Congo Basin is second only to the Amazon in terms of tropical forest cover. Overall the region accounts for 89 percent of Africa's tropical rainforests and stores 39 billion tons of carbon, accounting for 79 percent of the continent's terrestrial carbon.
Congo deforestation on the decline
Analysis of satellite data by Philippe Mayaux and colleagues shows the Congo Basin - at 0.3 percent annual forest loss - has the lowest deforestation rate of the planet's major tropical forest regions, both in proportional and absolute terms. The region's deforestation rate is also declining, falling 36 percent from 285,400 hectares a year in the 1990s to 181,500 ha per year in the 2000s. Africa's overall rate of rainforest loss is outpacing that of the Congo, falling more than half from 592,000 ha in the 1990s to 288,000 ha per year during the past decade.

The special issue notes that Africa's relative low rate of forest loss is a product of its circumstances, including "the almost complete absence of agro-industrial scale clearing", which globally accounts for more than half of tropical forest loss. Thomas Rudel of Rutgers University analyses drivers of deforestation in the region and finds that oil and mineral wealth seem to be acting as a deterrent to deforestation by triggering urban migration away from forest areas. But at the same time, this shift appears to weakening food security by increasing countries' dependence on food importance.

"The wetter Congo basin countries had lower rates of deforestation, in part because tax receipts from oil and mineral industries in this region spurred rural to urban migration, declines in agriculture and increased imports of cereals from abroad," writes Rudel. "In this respect, the Congo basin countries may be experiencing an oil and mineral fueled forest transition."

The research found most deforestation is "found around transport networks and close to cities, including areas suitable for agriculture within 5 hours travel time to major markets, and wood fuel and charcoal provisioning within 12 hours from a city."

But unlike other parts of the world, research published in the special issue suggests that commercial logging does not appear to be a major driver of deforestation in the Congo Basin. Instead it drives forest degradation and is associated with the burgeoning bushmeat trade by granting access via logging roads to hunters.

"In the high diversity African tropics, there are typically only one to two timber trees harvested per hectare, and it makes little economic sense to clear cut forests remote from markets," write Malhi and colleagues. "This contrasts with Southeast Asia, where the dipterocarp-rich forests yield many more timber species, and are much more intensively logged (around 10-20 trees per hectare) and heavily damaged by logging."

"Mayaux et al and Rudel explore the possible linkages between logging and subsequent deforestation. They find little evidence of logging leading to deforestation, either at national or local scales. One key difference from Amazonia is the lack of an active colonization frontier with pressure to clear logged forest. The loose network of logging tracks, owing to the light exploitation density, combined with the low population density, does not provoke the critical conditions for deforestation, except around a few concessions in the DRC."

Another paper in the special issue looks specifically at the effects of logging on the structure and dynamics of the forest. Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury and colleagues found that while biomass and forest function rebounds quickly from logging within 25 years, commercial trees take "much longer" to recovery. Meanwhile, a review by Kate Abernethy reveals that "defaunation" from unsustainable hunting can have persistent, long-term impacts on forest structure by reducing the abundance of key seed dispersers and "forest architects" like elephants.
Elephants may have an outsized role in Congo Basin forests. As noted by Simon Lewis and others, elephants may be partly responsible for the region's tall trees and high biomass, by crushing and eating small trees.

"The extremely low stem density in African forests may relate to the very high large animal biomass: elephants ( Loxodonta africana cyclotis), gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and other large herbivores such as bongos ( Tragelaphus eurycerus) may keep the density of small trees very low," Lewis and colleagues write. "This view is reinforced by a recent paper from Southeast Asia showing a large increase in sapling density when the large animal fauna is extirpated."

Lewis and co-authors note that, on average, Congo forests are taller and less diverse than Asia or the Amazon. But they store nearly as much carbon as the great Dipterocarp forests of Borneo.
The great unknown for Congo forests: climate change
While Congo Basin forests appear to be absorbing more carbon at present, the science on the impact of climate change in the region is far from settled. Climate models agree that the Congo basin will see a sharp rise in temperatures - up to 4°C this century, but it is uncertain how vegetation and wildlife will respond to the new conditions. Furthermore, parts of the basin may see shifts in precipitation patterns, including "wetting of the eastern regions" and "intensified dry seasons in the western Congo Basin". Reconstructions of past vegetation cover in the region shows that Congo forests have waxed and waned with climate change, including a "substantial" retreat 3,000 years ago.

Richard Washington and colleagues note that part of the problem in predicting the effects of climate change in the Congo Basin is lack of understanding of current conditions.

"The Congo Basin is poorly studied because of the dearth of available ground-based climate observations from the region, particularly in the past few decades," write Malhi and colleagues. "This deficiency is of global significance, because the Congo Basin is the second most important convective 'engine' of the global atmospheric circulation after the Maritime Continent (insular Southeast Asia and the surrounding waters) and is also the region of highest lightning strike frequencies on the planet [57]. In transition seasons (March-May and September-November), the Congo Basin dominates global tropical rainfall."

Comparison of the satellite images and forest-cover maps over the region of Lisala-Bumba (DR Congo). (a) MODIS color composite; (b) Landsat color composite; (c) MODIS-derived map (Mayaux et al 2013 study); (d ) Landsat-derived map; (e) GlobCover map and ( f ) synthesis map.

Planning for the future
Given the importance of Congo forests, the special issue includes papers on conservation options in the region. Unsurprisingly, a big focus is the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) mechanism, a program that aims to provide performance-based compensation to tropical countries for protecting their forests. REDD+ could potentially trigger the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars a year to Congo Basin countries, but has yet to overcome significant technical, economic, and political challenges. Nonetheless, some $550 million has already been committed to REDD+ in the region, which the issue suggests "may already be having an impact on slowing down deforestation and degradation activities in the region."

Malhi and colleagues note that there may be a limited window for consolidating conservation gains in the region given rising interest in industrial agriculture, especially oil palm plantations.

"A major threat to the forest biome is the potential of a shift to commercial agro-plantations, the write. "If poorly planned, then these industrial croplands could lead to extensive loss of forests as witnessed in Southeast Asia, and in soya bean regions of Amazonia, especially when combined with poor governance."

Rainforest logs in Gabon
Need for more research
The special section ends with a call to better understand Congo Basin forests.

"This short synthesis has highlighted many surprising aspects of the African rainforest biome, and how different it is in many aspects from other, perhaps better understood, rainforest regions. It has also highlighted how little we know and how much there is still to discover," write Malhi and colleagues. "There are reasons for concern, such has the heavy levels of defaunation and the potential impacts of climate change, and reasons for hope, such as the low rates of deforestation and the possible resilience of rainforest species to climate change."

"We call on the research and policy communities to redouble efforts to give this fascinating rainforest continent the attention it so richly deserves."

Young gorilla in Gabon

PAPERS IN THE SPECIAL ISSUE:

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. Introduction: The past, present and future of Africa's rainforests

Mayaux, Philippe; Pekel, Jean-François; Desclée, Baudouin; Donnay, François; Lupi, Andrea; Achard, Frédéric; Clerici, Marco; Bodart, Catherine; Brink, Andreas; Nasi, Robert; Belward, Alan. State and evolution of the African rainforests between 1990 and 2010

Lewis, Simon et al. Aboveground biomass and structure of 260 African tropical forests

Mitchard, Edward; Flintrop, Clara. Assessing the relative magnitude of woody encroachment and deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa's woodlands and savannas 1982-2006

Rudel, Thomas. The National Determinants of Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Oslisly, Richard; White, Lee; Bentaleb, Ilham; Favier, Charly; Fontugne, Michel; Gillet, Jean François; Sebag, David. Climatic and cultural changes in the West Congo Basin forests over the past 5000 years

Willis, Katherine; Bennett, Keith; Burrough, Sallie; Macias-Fauria, Marc; Tovar, Carolina. Determining the response of African biota to climate change: using the past to model the future

Abernethy, Kate; Coad, Lauren; Taylor, Gemma; Lee, Michelle; Maisels, Fiona. Extent and ecological consequences of hunting in Central African rainforests in the 21st Century

Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie; Mortier, Frédéric; Fayolle, Adeline; Baya, Fidèle; Ouedraogo, Dakis; Benedet, Fabrice; Picard, Nicolas. Tropical forest recovery from logging: a 24 year silvicultural experiment from Central Africa

Fisher, Joshua; Sikka, Munish; Sitch, Stephen; Ciais, Philippe; Poulter, Benjamin; Galbraith, David; Lee, Jung-Eun; Huntingford, Chris; Viovy, Nicolas; Zeng, Ning; Ahlström, Anders; Lomas, Mark; Levy, Peter; Frankenberg, Christian; Saatchi, Sassan; Malhi, Yadvinder. African tropical rainforest net CO2 fluxes in the 20th century
James, Rachel; Washington, Richard; Rowell, David. Implications of global warming for the climate of African rainforests

Washington, Richard; James, Rachel; Pearce, Helen; Pokam, Wilfried; Moufouma-Okia, Wilfran. Congo Basin rainfall climatology: can we believe the climate models?

Otto, Friederike; Jones, Richard; Halladay, Kate; Allen, Myles. Attribution of changes in precipitation patterns in African rainforests

Asefi-Najafabady, Salvi; Saatchi, Sassan. Response of African humid tropical forests to recent rainfall anomalies

Maniatis, Danae; Gaugris, Jerome; Mollicone, Danilo; Scriven, Joel; Corblin, Alexis; Ndikumagenge, Cleto; Aquino, André; Crete, Philippe; Sanz-Sanchez, Maria-José. Financing and current capacity for REDD+ readiness and monitoring, measurement, reporting and verification in the Congo Basin

Asare, Rebecca. The Community Resource Management Area Mechanism: A strategy to manage African forest resources for REDD+

Gond, Valery; Fayolle, Adeline; Pennec, Alexandre; Cornu, Guillaume; Mayaux, Philippe; Camberlin, Pierre; Doumenge, Charles; Fauvet, Nicolas; Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie. Vegetation structure and greenness in central Africa from modis multi-temporal data

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. African rainforests: past, presents and future

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Deforestation rate falls in Congo Basin countries

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.