Quick questions on Land Clearing, Deforestation and Habitat Fragmentation - TCE Environmental Science (Tasmania)

Removing forest has several direct effects. The most obvious is habitat loss: species that depend on the forest lose the food, shelter and breeding sites they need, and local populations decline or disappear. Deforestation also affects the carbon cycle, because forests store large amounts of carbon in wood and soil. When forest is cleared and burnt or left to decay, that carbon is released as carbon dioxide, contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect, while the loss of the trees removes a future carbon sink.

Tasmania retains large areas of intact forest, including the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, but the management of native forests for timber, and the conversion of some native forest to plantations, has reduced and fragmented habitat in parts of the state. Species such as the swift parrot, which depends on flowering blue gums and nesting hollows in old trees, are threatened by the loss and fragmentation of mature forest, compounded by predation from the introduced sugar glider. This shows how clearing, fragmentation and introduced species combine to threaten biodiversity.