• Question: What is your thoughts on deforestation and how it effects the air we breathe in?

    Asked by anon-208950 to Tori, Titus, Stuart, Hannah, Gill, Alessandro on 5 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Stuart Higgins

      Stuart Higgins answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      I haven’t studied deforestation since I was at school, but I just searched around a bit.

      There was a report published by scientists from the University of Leeds in 2015. They found that when the Brazilian government reduced the amount of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, the air quality went up – not because the rainforest was cleaning up the pollution, but because fewer trees we being burnt as they were cut down, and this meant there was less smoke in the atmosphere. They estimated this probably saved the lives of hundreds of people.

      Reduction in Amazon deforestation improves air quality and saves lives

    • Photo: Hannah Dalgleish

      Hannah Dalgleish answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      Deforestation makes me very sad. I spent a lot of my childhood growing up in native woodland in the Scottish Borders, I love nature and trees especially.
      While trees make the air we breathe much better, we also need to reduce the air pollution that we make. Manmade chemicals from factories, traffic, ships etc. all contribute.

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