Unit 3: Chapter Questions

Chapter 15:

The four types of land degradation are Erosion, Chemical Deterioration, Physical Deterioration and Desertification. Erosion is the removal of the nutrient rich soil from a piece of land. Chemical Deterioration is caused from the leaching of the nutrients of the soil. Physical Deterioration is when outside factors such as animals and machinery causing a physical change in the environment. Lastly desertification which is when human activity reduces the amount of arable and land leaving it drained of nutrients. The reason why the beer industry in Ontario has been so successful in the way of recycling is because all of the beer is manufactured in containers that can be easily refilled again causing for the customers to constantly bring up the containers and let the beer company wash and refill them again reducing the amount of waster produced. Dairy farms could similarly adapt the same method by introducing refillable milk bottles and reducing the amount of plastics produced lowering the amount of waste produced.

Chapter 16:

SLAPP is the strategic lawsuits against public participation, whose principal purpose is to force the NGO into spending their money in making a lawsuit to defend themselves rather than to actually fight the company in an effort to make any real change. a) This type of plans are in place for the protection of the endangered species in a certain piece of land, because it forces the company in any region where this law is in place to reduce their business activity so they do not impact the environment in too big of a manner b) This type of implication is more important on private land because private land business owners are solely interested in making a profit, while on the other hand nature preserves would function as a benefit to the environment around it, so therefore implications such as these nature acts should be in place on private land because of the greed acquired by business owners who fail to value to the nature they own. These protest are in fact effective in the sense that they do attract a lot of attention from the social media and media giants themselves. Living in a society where news can be delivered in a matter of minutes, having such protest does gain a lot of popularity over the internet and major news sites quickly which results in a firm base of supporters who can quickly assemble and combat the issue. Also these protest do send a message to the company that are abusing the environment, a message which states that their activities are not going to go unwatched and that there is a force that will challenge them. Mostly these cases do go to courts where decisions are made in favour of the NGO protecting the environment which overall helps the environment.

Chapter 17:

a) Wetland are important because they are temporary water storage that can in time help refill recharge areas, they hold the soil and vegetation in place creating an ecosystem, they provide inhabitants a breeding ground, and most importantly they are natures water cleaners. b)Wetland are primary drained for residential, industrial and agricultural purposes. c) There have been international efforts to preserve the wetlands, such the Ramsar Convention signed in Iran which was the international policy helping preserve wetlands globally. The benefits of irrigating water to the U.S is that the fruit belt in U.S is able to grow massive amounts of food due to the help, adding in the yield of food available to the population of the country and secondly allows for the massive population of U.S not to starved from the precious resources of fresh water. However the downfall of such objectives is that it is slowly draining Canada dry from its natural resources leaving many lakes to have salt deposits causes by the receding water levels and causes a imbalance in the natural life that is currently present in the