Deforestation in the Philippines

1) Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land thereafter is converted to a non-forest use. Examples include conversion of forestland to farmland or urban areas. Deforestation in the Philippines is a major issue. 

2) In the Philippines deforestation is a major issue, from the 20th century to know the forest cover for dropped from 70% to 20% which is a very big decrease. The environmental impact on animals is a huge one as well as for 46 species have become endangered and 4 species have gone extinct. There is only 3.2% of a rainforest has been left. The government regularly granted logging concessions of less than ten years. Since it takes 30–35 years for a second-growth forest to mature, loggers had no intention to replant trees,  40 percent of the harvestable lumber never left the forests because they were damaged in the logging process, rotted or are burned in place. The unsurprising result of these and related policies is that out of 17 million hectares of closed forests that flourished early in the century only 1.2 million remain today.

3) I think that deforestation is a bigger threat in my country then in Canada because although it may not be as big as Canada the Philippines have mostly islands that too tropical rainforests so if trees are being cut down then sooner or later there will be no more left and , and the plants animals and people will be at risk. 

Plate Tectonics

Here is an image of the plate tectonics in the world , my country is in the right side the little green Philippine plate. 

In this picture the diagrams help show what boundaries are near the plate in the country. You mostly see blue which is the subduction zone and there is the divergent, convergent and transform boundaries which altogether make up the same amount of space around , as much as the suduction zone takes up by itself. The movement of the plate is about 80mm a year, and is in motion today increasing the likelihood of earthquakes and tsunamis. The thickness of the plate is about 29-41 km around the Nankai trough. 











                                                             The Philippine Sea plate originated lower than the equator about 55 million years ago and was followed by several tectonic events resulting in its present day location, it was a change in the movement, to a westward motion, of the Pacific plate that has converted the N-S transform fault on the Philippine Sea plate to the subduction zone currently present along the boundary between these two plates. 

Climates and Climate Controls

1) The different climate controls that impact the Philippines are more intense El Nino, this is when the surface of ocean waters in the Pacific become warmer. The energy caused by this is so strong that it can cause an imbalance in the weather in different parts of the world. Another thing is sea temperatures rising by 1 to 4 degrees celsius this can cause more powerful storms as for they are caused by warmer waters. In the Philippines however the temperatures are slowly rising to 4 and 5 degrees celsius at times. When it gets this warm it kills coral reefs which can eventually lead to a decline in fish. Ocean acidification in pH levels can also lead to coral reefs dying. Lastly another thing is more intense hurricanes. This will be caused because rainfall, river flow and flooding will increase enormously overtime as it already is.

2)Here are the average temperatures and precipitation in some of the major cities.

Regional differences in precipitation and temperature Climate figures for cities  in the Philippines
Cities	Average temperatures in °C		Average precipitation in cm
	January	July	January	July	year
Manila, Luzon	26	27	2	40	197
Tacloban, Leyte	26	27	28	16	238
Tagbilaran, Bohol	26	28	12	13	143

3)

AVERAGE MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE OVER THE YEAR

The monthly mean minimum and maximum daily temperature. Show in Fahrenheit »

• The months January and December have a nice average temperature.
• -On average, the temperatures are always high.
• -A lot of rain (rainy season) falls in the months: May, June, July, August, September, October and November.
• -Manila has dry periods in January, February, March and April.
• -On average, the warmest month is May.
• -On average, the coolest month is December.
• -August is the wettest month.
• -February is the driest month.

Bohol Earthquake

1) An earthquake that has occurred in the Philippines is the the Bohol earthquake in 2013. Known as one of the deadliest earthquakes to ever have happened in the country of a magnitude of 7.2 killing more than 150 people and destroying century old churches and affecting more then 3 million families in Central Visayas.

2)This was a shallow earthquake, cause by the reverse faulting.

3)This was a dip -slip or reverse fault earthquake. It might have occurred because of a previously undiscovered fault line, transecting Bohol and running parallel to the islands through the north west coast.

4) The Richter scale magnitude of the earthquake was 7.2

5) The impact on the biosphere was a big one because more then 3 million people were affected by the earthquake, and it had damaged many of the heritage churches an estimated $1.1 billion dollars to repair. Affected many peoples houses and the hospitals.

b) The lithosphere was impacted with cracked roads to broken bridges,and massive landslides occurring after. Trees fallen down and people and animals with no where to go.

c) The economic impact was tremendous with lots of things to fix and needing money in order to do so.

d) The impact on the infastructure was major cracks in roads like seen in the picture below, and broken bridges.