Land Use Change

There is no doubt that human civilization has transformed the face of the planet that we call home.

Click on the tree for ideas of ways that humans can affect the short term carbon cycle through changes in land use.

A healthy forest stores carbon in the tissues of its resident plants. When this forest is cut down or burned to make room for agricultural land or provide raw materials for industrial use, the carbon that was previously stored in vegetation is released into the atmosphere.

In this way, the choices that humanity makes about the way in which we use the land resources available to us.

Burning Forest

Deforestation