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NATURE IN DANGER

The environment and man are two words that cannot go together from any point of view.The problem of the relation man – environment is not new. It appeared at the same timewith the establishment of the very first human community, because the intelligent man andhis creativity was not satisfied with the Nature as it used to be, so he started courageouslyand tenaciously to transform it according to his needs. By reproducing himselfcontinuously, the human race added to the natural landscape new sights, turning swampsand virgin soils into fertile valleys, dry lands into green oases, he created new culturebreeds and domesticated wild animals. Up to this point, the natural balance had notsuffered too much, maybe only on limited areas that could not affect the whole. Theturning point was when the industrial revolution began, especially with the new technical –scientific revolution, thanks to whom planes and rockets fly nowadays in the sky andpenetrate the clouds, ships, every day bigger and stronger split the sparkling seas andoceans, hydroelectric plants transform the power of the waters into light and energy thatsupplies the vehicles in continuous increment. In one word, science and techniue, byincreasing beyond measure man!s force, have increased, averagely speaking all over theglobe the living standards. But it has been a two face coin" on one hand the materialprogress and the deterioration of the environment. Under the impact of economicdevelopment have been polluted, more or less serious, the soil, the waters and the air, alot of species of plants and animals have been e#tinguished or are about to be, moreover

man is confronting various diseases caused by pollution phenomena presented today in allcountries and continents. Its effects are felt even in $ntarctica, still intact until yesterday. Itwas calculated that in a decade of time the deviations of the civili%ation caused moredamages to the environment than in a millennium. $t the beginning of the Neolithic onlyten million people were operating on nature, with primitive tools that did not leave anydistinguishable tracks. $t the middle of the &'th century, not long after the beginning of theindustrial revolution, the number of the inhabitants of the globe reached one billion, but thedeterioration of the environment was not too concerning, e#cept on some areas of theoccidental countries – starting with (ngland – that got in first on the )industriali%ation train*,first of all due to the steam machine. The global pollution is the attribute of the +thcentury, more precisely of the - last decades, the period when the population has grown

from to / billion people. $re there many or few0 Is it really this number an importantfactor to the deterioration of the environment0 These are the uestions that alreadyconcern both the demographers, economists, doctors and other specialists and thepoliticians. The problem that has preoccupied the specialists all along is in fact the naturalsupplies and if they were enough for the population and only for the last decades theyhave turned to another aspect that proved to be as important as the first one1 thedeterioration of the environment by pollution, erosion and other phenomena, caused byman, consciously or not, a process that is affecting not only the means of providing food,but also other aspects of the human e#istence, beginning with the health of the humanrace.There is no uestion that the land is the most valuable capital that man has for satisfying

his needs and his ambitions. In the issue, at least until the invention of the artificialphotosynthesis we all depend on the thin layer of the fertile soil from the surface of the(arth, where we e#tract the totality of the resources necessary to life. 2ne of the ma3or

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parado#es is that man is tending to endanger the source of the life and of the force out ofignorance, greed, negligence or other causes. 4o while the modern technology has turnedmillions of hectares of land into fertile soil at the same time other millions of hectares havebecome infertile, because of the actions of man. (ver since man has begun to fight againstnature, the surface of the desert has grown with a billion of hectares and the process is

continuing rapidly. 5oreover, every year tens of millions of hectares of fertile soil are)devoured* by roads, plants and cities, the same uneven battle between the leaf andasphalt.(ver since the first primitive hatchet knocked down the first tree, the forests lost half oftheir surface, while the mankind reproduced itself hundreds, even thousands times. Thedestruction of the forests, to which we own the stability and the uality of the three vitalelements – soil, air and water – has had disastrous effects. 5assive deforestation hasburied under sand dunes prosperous civili%ations not only in the North $frica but also in $sia while some parts of (urope has driven to the denudation of mountains and hills up tothe limit of calamity.

6eforestation is still a new word and its effects are too insignificant in order to compensate

the multi7millennial mistake that caused the e#tinction of the half of the trees of theplanet. 2f course the calculations in this matter are still very poor, but we drawupon the results we have, no matter how the appro#imation is. $t the end of6oman (mpire, the Iberic 8eninsula was covered with vigorous forests fromBiscaya up to the 4traits of 9ibraltar and it would have had a almost a doublepopulation compared to nowadays, that remained : of the former forests.

 $part from protecting the soil, the forest has the most powerful purifying action on air. Itabsorb the carbon dio#ide and it turn it into o#ygen. ;rom the &<7&/ billion tones ofcarbon dio#ide released annually in the atmosphere by burning fuel plus frompeople and animal breathing, two thirds are absorbed by forests, the =green lungs*

of the (arth to whom we owe so much.Not less important is the role of the forests as regulari%ation factor of the rivers! courses.The wood is also meant to provide the recreation and tourism more and moreaccentuated in the modern life, the biophysics ambiance indispensable in resorts,conservation of many useful plants and animals etc. 4hortly without enough forest,the development and life itself are not possible. Today, when the forests are aboutone third of the land surface >appro#imate < billion hectares? one thinks this is anecessary minimum below which humankind cannot afford to go. @e have somany and old mistakes to make up for the forest, when only one car going &km consumes enough o#ygen for one man for an year, and the unleashed riversmake more and more devastations, washing what has left of the soil fertility has

become a too e#pensive lu#ury.