My name is Megan Salvatore and I am a second year student here at the PSU world campus. I am working on a letters, arts and sciences bachelor degree. I live in Lancaster Country, PA in a little river town called Marietta. It is along the banks of the Northeast Susquehanna River just south of Harrisburg. I come from a family of hunters and outdoor enthusiast. We spend most of our spring and summer months camping, prepping for the fall hunting season and doing any sort of river recreation you could think of. We love to pole and bow fish well as geocaching, hiking, boating and kayaking. We own a few different properties and our deeply reliant on the health of the different ecosystems found along the river, such as the wetlands and surrounding woods to continue our family’s traditions. We are ethical in our hunting practices and follow the strict regulations that come with it in PA. Although we have done our fair share of traveling to different states to hunt as well. I have always held the natural beauty of my local area as one of the most valuable amenities found there and we are diligent as a family to preserve it’s beauty. We have advocated in the local boroughs government and state government. I would really like to pursue an environmental career in the future but I am not sure exactly what outlet I would like to establish that career in at this time. I was interested in this course because it offers yet another perspective in the relationships between humanity and the environment. I am hoping this helps me gain a more rounded and holistic perspective on the pressing environmental issues that are important to our future.

The field of geography could be valuable when it comes to finding a way to help combat mass deforestation in other countries. The places that suffer the most from deforestation are often areas of forest that are rich in biodiversity as well as recycle carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Some of the areas affected by deforestation are in fact protected but because of the local demand for fire wood as well as demand for hard woods from other countries they are encroached upon and cut down despite the protection because it can not be enforced for various reasons. Some of those reasons being lack of infrastructure, no available way to enforce the protection to the large acreage of forests and local need for fuel wood to help stimulate local economy or individual need. These forests that are targeted are very old and are not easily renewable so once the trees are cleared there is no way to replenish the ecosystem. This causes massive deaths for many different animal species and is of great effect to the local human population as well. Some of the forests effected hold natural cures to human disease that may not have been discovered or harvested for human use yet. I believe it is pretty evident that the local populations are not completely to blame for the issue of their local deforestation because the demand for the wood is not always a local demand. The local need for fuel wood is not enough to explain the volume of forests being harvested, therefore some of the need is from other countries. Geography could help understand the commodity chain and come up with sustainable solutions to the problem of deforestation.