Why?

DEFORESTATION

  Deforestation

Ø              The deliberate clearance of forested terrain is known as deforestation. Forests have been cleared throughout history and into the present era to make room for agriculture and animal grazing as well as to obtain wood for fuel, manufacture, and construction.

Ø          Around the world, deforestation has significantly changed the terrain. Approximately 2,000 years ago, Western Europe was 80 percent forested; today, it is only 34 percent. Between the 1600s and the 1870s, almost half of the woods in eastern North America were cleared for agriculture and logging. Over the previous 4,000 years, large areas of China's woods have been lost, and only slightly more than 20% of the country is today covered in trees. Earth's cropland was previously largely covered in trees.

Ø            More carbon dioxide may be emitted into the atmosphere as a result of deforestation. Because trees use carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and because carbon is chemically bound in their wood, this is the case. This carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide when the trees are burned.  Because there are fewer trees to absorb carbon dioxide, this greenhouse gas builds up in the atmosphere and hastens global warming.

        Deforestation in Borneo's effects

                 Globally, deforestation has significant repercussions. As trees grow and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, forests store carbon in the form of wood and other biomass (see carbon cycle). Burning forests releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas that has the potential to change the climate (see greenhouse effect; global warming), and removes the trees' ability to absorb further carbon.

              In addition, tropical forests in particular contain the majority of the planet's rich species. Perhaps two-thirds of Earth's species only exist in moist tropical forests like the Amazon, which have the highest species densities of any terrestrial ecosystem.

 How do we eliminate the long-standing practise of deforestation?

             The United Nations estimates that the world's population will continue to increase and reach 10.8 billion people by the year 2100, which may portray a gloomy picture for the future of the world's forests. However, there are solid grounds for optimism that the twentieth century won't be as destructive as the previous one.

            We examine at rates of forest loss since 1700 in our follow-up post. The globe passed "peaked deforestation" in the 1980s and it has been on the decline since then. The per capita need for agricultural land is declining due to increases in crop yields. The chart illustrates this.

          The quantity of land we use for agriculture has only increased by 7% since 1961. The world's population rose from 3.1 to 7.6 billion people, a 147% rise. 4 As a result, the amount of agricultural land used for each person decreased from 1.45 to 0.63 hectares.

             In fact, according to some estimates, the globe has already reached its "peak agricultural land" [we'll look more closely at this in a future post]. And there is a real potential that we may continue to enjoy meat or foods that resemble meat while freeing up the enormous quantities of land we use to raise cattle thanks to the development of technical advancements like lab-grown meat and alternative products.

                We can stop deforestation if we can use these advancements to our benefit.  More humans and more trees could coexist in the future.