Land Use: Forests and Rangelands
1. World land use patterns are creating changes in major cover types. Which of the following cover types is being lost at the fastest annual rate? (p. 294)
A. urban areas
B. cropland
C. pasture and grazing land
D. tropical forest and woodland
E. temperate forest and woodland
2. In the last 10,000 years what percentage of the world's forests have been gained or lost? (p. 295)
A. 50% more forest
B. 50% less forest
C. about 15% less forest
D. about 95% less forest
E. about 95% more forest
3. About half the wood harvested in the world's forests is harvested for (p. 295)
A. fuelwood.
B. veneer.
C. pulp for paper.
D. chipboard.
E. none of the above.
4. The biggest net exporter of industrial timber is (p. 296)
A. Africa.
B. South America.
C. Oceania.
D. Russia.
E. North America and Central America.
5. Monocultural reforestation projects have which of the following effects? (p. 297)
A. loss of species diversity
B. increased profits
C. disease infestations
D. increased pest problems
E. all of the above
6. Tropical forests occupy less than 10% of the earth's land surface (p. 297)
A. and are quickly increasing their acreage because of reforestation.
B. contain about 2/3 of all the earth's plant biomass.
C. contain at least 1/2 of all plant, animal and microbial species in the world.
D. A and C.
E. B and C.
F. all of the above.
7. Since 1960, the percentage of tropical forests that have been cleared is (p. 298)
A. about 10%.
B. about 25%, of which almost all has been reforested in the last 10 years.
C. about 25%.
D. about 80%.
E. none of the above.
8. Swidden, or slash and burn, agriculture as practiced by most indigenous peoples is (p. 298)
A. primarily responsible for the losses in tropical forest cover.
B. actually very similar to a sustainable practice called mixed perennial polyculture.
C. decreasing species diversity in the tropical forest as a whole.
D. A and C.
E. none of the above.
9. The major source of forest destruction is (pp. 299-300)
A. logging alone.
B. logging coupled with conversion of the land to other uses.
C. fires.
D. grazing by cattle.
E. none of the above.
10. One major effect of tropical forest clearing is (p. 300)
A. increased nutrients in the topsoil.
B. decreased monoculture forestry.
C. degradation of rivers due to increased sediment load.
D. greater species diversity.
E. all of the above.
11. Debt-for-nature swaps are (p. 302)
A. agreements between governments to ceremonially remember the crucial role that nature plays in the lives of people.
B. ways to finance conservation in debt-ridden Third World countries.
C. ways that conservation organizations assume a portion of a Third World country's debt in exchange for an agreement by the debtor nation to protect or restore an area of biological importance.
D. B and C.
E. all of the above.
12. Currently the largest and most destructive temperate forest harvesting is happening in (p. 302)
A. Korea.
B. eastern Russia.
C. the northwestern United States.
D. eastern Slovenia.
E. none of the above.
13. Old-growth, as opposed to second growth, forests (p. 302)
A. have increased as a percentage of North American temperate forests.
B. are composed of primarily even aged trees.
C. are extremely complex ecologically, often containing endemic species that are highly adapted to the conditions of the forest.
D. A and C.
E. all of the above.
14. Pulpwood is most often harvested using (p. 304)
A. clear-cutting.
B. select cutting.
C. strip cutting.
D. shelterwood harvesting.
E. none of the above.
15. Traditionally, the United States Forest Service has regarded its primary job to be providing a steady supply of cheap logs from forest resources. A result of this emphasis is (p. 305)
A. now there are ten times as many miles of logging roads as miles in the interstate highway system.
B. management costs, cleanup, and replanting exceed income paid by logging companies by an estimated $1 billion in the first 5 years of the 1990s.
C. jobs in logging have increased by 10% per year over the last decade.
D. A and C.
E. A and B.
16. Fire suppression in the National Forests has (p. 306)
A. sometimes drastically altered the look of forest ecosystems.
B. allowed smaller trees and shrubs to crowd out grasses and forbs on the forest floor of some forests.
C. sometimes required bulldozing fragile ecosystems to contain fires.
D. helped to create the conditions for far bigger, high intensity fires.
E. all of the above.
17. The ecosystem in the United States with the highest number of threatened plant species is (p. 307)
A. forest.
B. wetland.
C. barren.
D. aquatic.
E. rangeland.
18. Overgrazing of rangeland can cause rain to runoff too quickly thereby causing (p. 308)
A. increases in the total amount of subsoil.
B. lower nutrient loads in river systems.
C. desertification.
D. increases in the groundwater level.
E. all of the above.
19. Private use of publically owned rangelands in the United States (p. 310)
A. has resulted in overgrazing that has reduced, by some estimates, over 50% of the land to poor or very poor condition.
B. has resulted in generation of grazing fees that are about 1/3 of the cost of administering the program.
C. is mostly by small ranchers who must rely on federal subsidies to survive.
D. A and C.
E. A and B.
20. Land ownership patterns world-wide have (p. 311)
A. resulted in about 4/5 of the world's poor being propertyless rural residents.
B. created a system of absentee, large-scale landowners who often have little tie to the land.
C. marginalized the claims of indigenous peoples to land they once had.
D. created a class of landowners in Latin America that, while being only 7% of the population, own 93% of the land.
E. all of the above.