Changing Land Uses - Shrinking Streams and Carbon Sinks

Download or read book Changing Land Uses - Shrinking Streams and Carbon Sinks written by Brij Kishore Singh and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2022-10-19 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book, ‘Changing Land Uses – Shrinking Streams and Carbon Sinks’, attempts at providing an overview of the calamitous consequences of deforestation on the world climate. Deforestation worldwide has been lowering the carbon sequestration potential of forests and increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The planet is already warmer by 1.10 C than the preindustrial era and as a result we are facing disastrous consequences in terms of frequent and destructive climatic catastrophes, namely, storms, sea surges, floods, droughts etc. Several perennial streams have become seasonal owing to deforestation in the catchments. With special reference to Karnataka’s Western Ghat forests, the book carries several investigative stories highlighting how notified and un-notified forests have been plundered for a variety of reasons. Diverse land tenures in Kodagu district of Karnataka and administration’s failure to regulate the rights and privileges are exploited by the nexus between politicians and bureaucrats. Without realizing the ecological services provided by forests, natural forests in different land tenures have been allowed to be degraded for quid pro quo. In addition, forests have been diverted for many developmental projects such as widening of roads, construction of reservoirs for power and irrigation, transmission of power, establishing rail connectivity etc. leading to changing land uses, disappearance of perennial streams and loss of carbon sinks. It is high time that states acted in conserving natural forests irrespective of the ownership, and the country as a whole must grow trees over 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 as pledged in the Paris climate accord of 2015.