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(a) The percentage of land area that was covered by forests by the end of the last century was 19.4% although the recommended percentage of land covered by forests is 33% for the plains and 67% for the hills.

(b) The two practices that led to deforestations are:

(i) Timber Production and Mining: Human activities like mining oil or coal and timber production leads to deforestation.

(ii) Slash and burn farming: Producing land for cultivation of crops forests are often burned to make the land fertile and suitable for crop cultivation.

(c) Deforestation would lead to the following consequences:

(i) Changes in soil: The soil nutrients would decrease due to deforestation as forest products would be absent.

(ii) Climate change: The change in climate would occur due to deforestation as increased greenhouse gases and carbon would be present in the atmosphere, which would increase the temperature of the atmosphere and cause climate change.

(iii) Loss of biodiversity: Organisms which require a forest ecosystem would not survive and might go extinct due to deforestation.

(iv) Natural Calamities:Deforestation can lead to various natural calamities like floods and mudslides.

(d) Methods to overcome deforestation are:

(i) The most effective way to prevent deforestation is to plant more trees, i.e., reforestation.

(ii) There should be a ban on unauthorized cutting of trees from forests and public and private lands.

(iii) Awareness regarding the harmful effects of deforestation should be spread through campaigns, media, and NGOs.

(iv) Laws and regulations regarding unauthorized deforestation should be strictly implanted on a governmental level.

OR

(a) The pattern in which all communities undergo a change in the composition and structure with the changing environmental conditions is orderly and occurs in sequential changes which are parallel with the changes occurring in the physical environment.

(b) Climax or Climate community are the changes that lead to the formation of a community that is in equilibrium with the environment. Thus, it is the ecological succession of plants, animals, fungi etc in a community over a time period reaches a steady state of equilibrium.

Sere or Seral community is defined as an intermediate stage of ecological succession in an ecosystem which develops to eventually reach climax or climate community.

(c) The differences between primary and secondary succession are :

• Example of primary succession – Newly cooled lava/ Bare rocks.

• Example of secondary succession – Abandoned forests/burned forests.