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112 Deforestation Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Deforestation is a pressing issue that has a significant impact on the environment and society as a whole. It refers to the permanent destruction or removal of forests, leading to the loss of biodiversity, climate change, and the displacement of indigenous communities. As a topic, deforestation offers numerous angles and areas of exploration for essay writing. In this article, we present 112 deforestation essay topic ideas and examples that can help you to delve into this critical subject matter.

• The causes of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
• The economic implications of deforestation in developing countries.
• Exploring the relationship between deforestation and climate change.
• The role of multinational corporations in deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on indigenous communities.
• The long-term consequences of deforestation on global food security.
• The importance of reforestation efforts in combatting deforestation.
• Deforestation and its impact on water cycles and availability.
• The role of government policies in driving or mitigating deforestation.
• The effects of deforestation on wildlife and endangered species.
• The ethical considerations of deforestation for agricultural expansion.
• The impact of deforestation on local economies and livelihoods.
• Deforestation and its connection to the spread of infectious diseases.
• The effectiveness of international agreements in addressing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Analyzing deforestation rates in different regions of the world.
• The relationship between deforestation and illegal logging.
• The role of consumer demand in driving deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on soil erosion and degradation.
• The consequences of deforestation on the global timber industry.
• The potential solutions to deforestation through sustainable land management.
• Analyzing the economic benefits of forest conservation compared to deforestation.
• The role of technology in monitoring and preventing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on the availability of medicinal plants.
• The connection between deforestation and natural disasters such as floods and landslides.
• The influence of international aid and funding on deforestation rates.
• The social and cultural impact of deforestation on indigenous knowledge and practices.
• Deforestation and its relationship to the loss of biodiversity.
• The role of education and awareness campaigns in combating deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on water quality and availability.
• The consequences of deforestation on global climate patterns.
• Analyzing the role of deforestation in exacerbating poverty in rural communities.
• The impact of deforestation on ecotourism and sustainable development.
• The role of the media in raising awareness about deforestation.
• The potential for agroforestry as an alternative to deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on wildlife migration and habitats.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of traditional knowledge.
• The role of international organizations in addressing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on local weather patterns and microclimates.
• Analyzing the economic benefits of forest ecosystem services compared to deforestation.
• The consequences of deforestation on river systems and freshwater resources.
• The role of community-based forest management in preventing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on air quality and respiratory health.
• The connection between deforestation and the spread of zoonotic diseases.
• The role of women in forest conservation and preventing deforestation.
• The consequences of deforestation on agricultural productivity and food prices.
• The relationship between deforestation and political instability.
• The impact of deforestation on traditional farming practices and food sovereignty.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of cultural diversity.
• The role of certification schemes in promoting sustainable forestry and combating deforestation.
• The consequences of deforestation on riverine and coastal ecosystems.
• The impact of deforestation on indigenous rights and land tenure.
• Analyzing the role of urbanization in driving deforestation.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of ecosystem resilience.
• The consequences of deforestation on carbon markets and REDD+ initiatives.
• The role of non-governmental organizations in advocating for forest conservation.
• The impact of deforestation on human health and well-being.
• The connection between deforestation and the spread of invasive species.
• The consequences of deforestation on cultural heritage and sacred sites.
• The role of sustainable forestry practices in preventing deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on local and global climate regulation.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of traditional medicine.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of clean drinking water.
• The role of international trade agreements in driving deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on the tourism industry.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of ecosystem services.
• The consequences of deforestation on the global carbon cycle.
• The role of forest restoration in combating deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on cultural identity and social cohesion.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of pollinators.
• The consequences of deforestation on migratory bird populations.
• The role of indigenous knowledge in sustainable forest management and preventing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on the availability of renewable energy sources.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of natural beauty and aesthetics.
• The consequences of deforestation on the spread of wildfires.
• The role of financial incentives in promoting forest conservation and preventing deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on economic inequality.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
• The consequences of deforestation on the nutritional value of food crops.
• The role of international finance institutions in addressing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on ecosystem resilience and adaptation to climate change.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of sacred forests and groves.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of renewable materials.
• The role of public-private partnerships in preventing deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on human rights and social justice.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of natural pest control.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of timber resources.
• The role of citizen science in monitoring and preventing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on the availability of clean air and oxygen production.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of cultural practices and traditions.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of non-timber forest products.
• The role of sustainable agriculture in preventing deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on global economic stability.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of traditional hunting and gathering grounds.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of clean and renewable water sources.
• The role of green finance in promoting forest conservation and preventing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on the resilience of coastal communities to climate change.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of traditional ecological calendars.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of traditional building materials.
• The role of forest-based industries in promoting sustainable forestry and preventing deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on social inequality and marginalized communities.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of traditional seed varieties.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of wild food resources.
• The role of sustainable tourism in promoting forest conservation and preventing deforestation.
• The impact of deforestation on the vulnerability of communities to natural disasters.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of cultural ceremonies and rituals.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of natural fibers and textiles.
• The role of community-based monitoring in preventing deforestation.
• Analyzing the impact of deforestation on mental health and well-being.
• The connection between deforestation and the loss of traditional storytelling and oral traditions.
• The consequences of deforestation on the availability of traditional medicinal plants.
• The role of international cooperation in addressing deforestation.

These essay topic ideas provide a wide array of perspectives and areas of exploration within the subject of deforestation. Whether you want to focus on the causes, consequences, solutions, or the intersection between deforestation and various other fields, these examples can serve as a starting point for your research and writing. Remember, deforestation is a multifaceted issue, and exploring different aspects of it can contribute to raising awareness and finding sustainable solutions.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Deforestation — The Issue of Deforestration: Consequences and Prevention

The Issue of Deforestration: Consequences and Prevention

• Categories: Deforestation Environmental Issues

About this sample

Words: 668 |

Published: Aug 10, 2018

Words: 668 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Consequences of deforestation, preventing deforestation, deforestation essay: hook examples.

• The Vanishing Forests: Our planet’s lush green forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. Join us on a journey to uncover the reasons behind deforestation, its devastating impact on ecosystems, and the urgent need for conservation.
• The Amazon Rainforest: Lungs of the Earth: The Amazon rainforest is often referred to as the “lungs of the Earth.” In this essay, we’ll delve into the vital role rainforests play in maintaining the global climate and why their destruction is a global concern.
• The Cost of Progress: Deforestation is often driven by economic interests. Explore the trade-offs between economic development and environmental preservation, and the potential consequences for future generations.
• Endangered Species: The Silent Victims: Deforestation poses a grave threat to biodiversity. This essay examines the impact on endangered species, their habitats, and the delicate balance of life disrupted by forest loss.
• From Trees to Timber: Sustainable Solutions: While deforestation is a pressing issue, there are sustainable alternatives. Join us in exploring responsible forestry practices, reforestation efforts, and ways we can protect our forests for future generations.

Works Cited

• BBC News. (n.d.). Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming.
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2015). Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015: How are the world’s forests changing?
• Greenpeace. (n.d.). Deforestation and climate change.
• Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., … & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries. Environmental Research Letters, 7(4), 044009.
• Malhi, Y., Roberts, J. T., Betts, R. A., Killeen, T. J., Li, W., & Nobre, C. A. (2008). Climate change, deforestation, and the fate of the Amazon. Science, 319(5860), 169-172.
• Nepstad, D., McGrath, D., Stickler, C., Alencar, A., Azevedo, A., Swette, B., … & Brooks, V. (2014). Slowing Amazon deforestation through public policy and interventions in beef and soy supply chains. Science, 344(6188), 1118-1123.
• Perz, S. G., Walker, R. T., & Caldas, M. M. (2006). Beyond population and environment: Household demographic life cycles and land use allocation among small farms in the Amazon. Human Ecology, 34(6), 829-849.
• Rudel, T. K., Defries, R., Asner, G. P., & Laurance, W. F. (2009). Changing drivers of deforestation and new opportunities for conservation. Conservation Biology, 23(6), 1396-1405.
• United Nations. (2021). The State of the World’s Forests 2020.
• World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Deforestation and forest degradation.

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The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction, background and overview, reasons for deforestation, effects of deforestation.

The ability to understand and address the effects of deforestation and logging forms the basis towards sustainability of resources, greater social-economic development, political stability and ecological sanctity in the fast globalizing society. Deforestation is not a one state issue as it was previously thought.

In fact, it is a highly diverse aspect with far reaching implications to all environmental aspects. Lawrence et al (2012) point out that the current trend in deforestation around various countries across the world is shocking.

If this trend is not addressed, its cumulative effects would be irreversible and therefore greatly risk the existence of future generations. At this point, key questions that have frequently been asked have included the following: What entails deforestation?

How does deforestation affect a natural forest ecosystem? What are the main causes and resulting effects? What are some of the current efforts that have been put in place to address deforestation? Are these efforts efficient?

The current concerns on global deforestation have been examined in this paper as part of underscore its magnitude on a global scale and the litany of the disaster in the market. To indicate the road path that has resulted into the current precarious position and how it can be addressed, the national policy options have also been evaluated.

Finally, using the market to address the problem of deforestation and logging, the paper indicates the opportunities that can be assimilated to promote sound environmental practices that are equally sustainable while maximizing the returns to the people.

The ability to balance between economic development and natural resources capacity to sustainably maintain profitability forms the basis of the human race to match into the future with dignity and vitality.

Though the understanding of deforestation and logging as analysts concur is highly contested, the revelation of its related impacts has created a critical niche that demands involvement by all stakeholders.

Over the last few decades, the problem of global warming in conjunction with aspects such as deforestation have been cited as the most dangerous disasters in waiting on a global scale.

This has been the case due to its expansive deforestation and destruction of nature that makes even those not involved directly in its destruction to severely suffer the negative effects.

In their publication, Lawrence et al (2012) define deforestation as a permanent destruction of woodlands and forests. The definition points out at indigenous tree as well as vegetation cover which does not include plantations of pines and gums or industrial forests. The role that forest plays in the balancing of an ecosystem is very crucial.

Environmentalists indicate that besides being a source of materials human beings use every day, it serves as a habitat for endemic plants, birds and wild animals. The problem of deforestation has been massive in most regions in the world with recent reports from the World Bank showing a four fifth reduction of indigenous forest.

Other reports indicate that by 2011, half the total forest of the world had disappeared posing a threat to the majority of plant species and animals living in the tropical forests.

On the other hand, logging is part of deforestation whereby trees are cut, processed on-site and loaded into trucks. The latter is a silviculture activity with similar effects like deforestation.

While some would argue that the logistics behind logging is to remove wood from forest to a lumber yard outside a forest, it is imperative to note that the practice directly connects with deforestation. It is a theft of timber and violates the law.

Figure1: A figure showing the effect of logging

https://hornbillunleashed.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/3483/

The current fast deteriorating status of natural environment has greatly been caused by poor domestication, articulation, and harmonization of international laws by individual countries and states.

This has been prompted by lack of enough good will to address all issues relating to environment in a holistic outlook thereby compromising the overall resilience of the same natural resources.

Due to much bitterness, scholars have lamented about the reduced capacity to comprehend the inability of their non-inclusive sole conservation strategies which factors not the interconnectedness of the natural environment.

As a result, this has created a strong rift between the conservations and implementing bodies over who is to blame for the mayhem. Over the years, the desire to advance and grow both economically, socially, and culturally have been entirely dependent on nature.

Whereas various countries lag behind in implementation of different conservation laws in their jurisdictions, it is clear that the practice of deforestation and logging is committing the world into a more perilous state than it is currently.

Virtually all products and services are nature-derived. Even for the few that may claim non-derivative status, their transport and eventual spatial temporal application have great connotation of nature.

Studies indicate that deforestation is not a new phenomenon since it has been a difficult issue blamed on numerous factors. Lindsay and Thornton (2012) indicate that some one of the reasons behind deforestation is the growing need among agricultural dependent communities to convert forest and woodland areas into agricultural lands.

It is imperative to highlight that this has been a factor that has been motivated by the demand to feed the ever growing populations. Besides, many societies in tropical countries have over the years turned to cattle ranching and growing of cash crops to earn money and foreign exchange.

As a result, many large forest areas have been cleared and turned into farming zones for livestock breeding and cash crop farming.

Figure 2: A diagram showing deforestation

Additionally, deforestation occurs when businesses within an industry practice commercial logging. The latter has been a method widely used by industries that supply the world market with a variety of wood such as ebony, mahogany, teak, and meranti.

This practice has not only destroyed forests, but has opened up large tracts of land for agriculture. The felling of trees has not only stopped with businesses, but also the construction sector which relies on trees for building.

Global warming and climate change

Global warming is the increase in the average temperatures on the troposphere due to excessive emissions of green house gases into the atmosphere. Scientifically, green house gases allow easy penetration of short wavelength radiations from the outer space while obscuring escape of the long wave radiations from the earth surface.

As a result, there has been a direct build up of the surface temperatures in the earth thereby causing vast climate changes. As a concern by the natural laws, this change has been directly linked to massive destruction of natural ecosystems in the world.

Excessive thawing in the polar regions, rising levels of the sea, loss of forests, flooding, higher levels of tropical weather systems and most importantly desertification.

Scientifically, carbon dioxide is an important component in green plants’ photosynthetic process. However, Lindsay and Thornton (2012) point out that human beings have constantly been clearing forests for agricultural purposes, urban development, settlements and industrial development.

Besides, forests have also been cleared as raw materials for wood based industries. On average, Masood and Shah (2012) indicate that about 80,000 acres of forests are cleared every day globally. As a result, the critical role of sinking the atmospheric carbon has greatly been compromised and therefore resulting to greater accumulation of greenhouse gases.

High levels of poverty

While many human activities on forest have been aimed at improving living standards through agriculture, it goes without mentioning that the deforestation has instead increased global poverty levels that have plagued the society today.

In their publication, Lawrence et al (2012) indicate that the immediate concerns for individuals clearing forests for agriculture or burning charcoal for money is neither conservation nor environmentalism. Rather, they are mostly concerned with basic survival. This practice therefore puts the environment under great pressure.

This coupled with intensified mechanization of deforestation by industries has resulted to extremely high rates of forest cover removal. The impact has been a devastating 13 million hectares of land being cleared down every year around the world.

This puts pressure on the natural resources and forest clearance either for alleviating poverty, raising economic status or promoting greater development through mechanization affects the balance in the ecosystem leading to poverty.

A more worrying effect to agree with Bonan(2008) is desertification. The rising temperatures as recorded over the years intensify the severity of draughts, by making more land uncultivable and less habitable.

Floods and submergence of coastal lowlands

According to Betts et al (2001), the rising temperatures over the years have resulted to excessive thawing of ice waters at the Polar Regions.

Consequently, the additional waters has resulted to key submergence and flooding of the low lying costal lands. Islands and low lying regions such as Venice, New Orleans and Indonesia have recorded key losses from floods (Lindsay & Thornton, 2012).

In the Caribbean, nations such as Cuba, Haiti and the Domican Republic which rely on beach tourism to support their economies have started experiencing major losses from floods and could be headed to major disasters if the problem is not addressed.

From the above analysis, it is clear that deforestation is one of the most critical aspects that require immediate address if the earth is to avoid major disasters. Cooperation and ethical responsibility is therefore critical for the risk to be effectively addressed.

Of greater importance is the need to assimilate better mechanisms based on research that provides empirical information on how to address the problem.

Besides, the future of individuals and businesses in the world is considered to be on a critical balance as states and their associated social-economic and political systems appear to differ greatly on the model that could be used to address deforestation and the awaiting disaster.

It is critical that the society at large take a leading role in progressively assimilating models that reduced felling of trees for whatever reasons. Due to the extent of the negative effects, corporate social responsibility by businesses should be taken with greater emphasis to link the respective stakeholders in addressing the problem.

For many years, trading in timber has been claimed to be a negligible factor in loss of forests. There has been a notion that wood fuel and agricultural land clearance are the most harmful forms of deforestation (Masood & Shah, 2012).

Growth in population is believed to be the cause of the major scourge in forestation. Industrial exploitation of wood is also a valid problem when it comes to the impacts of deforestation. Research has proven that there has been a misconception in the determination of the most relevant cause of forest loss.

Besides, the efforts by the international board of bio diversity preservation to define this problem are quite reliable. In its mission to enhance survival of the ecosystems, they have managed to give a clear picture of the problem at hand. It has been concluded that trading in timber is the most significant factor which leads to forest loss and degradation of the environment.

It is possible to conduct a detailed discussion which gives an account of how logging is harmful to forestation. This can be attained through pointing out realities which are on the ground. It is not easy to find a rich endowment of forests in areas which have large or small scale operations in timber harvesting.

Regions which have a high diversity of tree coverage have both old and valued trees. These are the major targets of commercial activities. It goes without saying that the more valuable a certain species is, the scantier it becomes as time progresses.

Hence, natural forests have been devastated. This is more rampant in areas where stewardship of forests is done by indigenous people or groups who are politically not empowered. A nominal state of control is experienced which later opens up forests towards deforestation.

The fact that these high diversified forests have a rich value has continued to draw growing attention. They have an established flow to markets given that they are easily acquired.

Commercial activities in timber industry have also led to reduction in the quality of forests. In a conservation perspective, it is true that there is no positive difference brought by replacing the world’s forest cover with plantations of trees. It should be noted that a principle of destroying in order to repair is not helpful at all.

It is a destructive plot which continues to abhor efforts of saving our ecosystems. It is also worth noting that the majority of native wildlife should not be destroyed intentionally with a mentality that replacement will be done in the near future.

Original native species should be left intact to continue multiplying. Even though it is impossible to retain a constant number of a given species, it is important to keep all rare trees alive. Replacing them with exotic types leads to the growth of weed species. This is as a result of cross pollinations which may not be easily curbed.

Poor quality of forests is being experienced across the globe. Most parts of Australia, North America, Europe and Africa at large have suffered greatly due to this problem. This is more felt in the biological value of forests. Analysis shows that the loss of trees which cover land has a far reaching impact than it is thought.

Quality in composition of forests is a basic intrinsic element which should be preserved to keep good ecosystems. This is because trees have different values. If ecosystems are not given a natural chance to have full development, then there is likelihood that forests will suffer numerous extinctions in the near future.

The impact of forest loss continues to be felt as time goes by. Forests have continued to grow scantly in different areas. Many countries have remained with fragments of what used to be areas of high forest cover. The only regions which seem to have rich forests are those which are next to human habitations.

The latter have proved to be less reliable due to the fact that timber trade has continued to grow. Actions of timber traders are at a critical level with the survival of biological forest. Ecosystems have been significantly affected in pursuit of timber (Lindsay & Thornton, 2012).

There have been years of continued degradation and as such, forests have terribly suffered. Areas with natural forest cover have remained to be the hope for future forestry. The earth has reached a point where it has vast pieces of land which had adequate forest cover but was cleared.

Young regenerations of such forests have minimal chances of survival because logging has devastated the available tree cover. Old forests have reached a point of no return. Research shows that if forests were not tempered with by timber harvesting, then flora and fauna would retain their primary growth.

Undisturbed forests are rear to obtain. They have been left in the hands of merciless activities of logging. It is evident that the quality of ecosystems in the current world has undergone gross degradation.

In a pursuit of what is believed to be sustainable development, nations have destroyed their rich natural ecosystem. Natural ecosystems are barely able to support life. There is a clear representation of the picture when chances of survival of given species of organisms are under the care of human beings.

The fact that people cannot stop commercial logging even after seeing its adverse effects is a solid prove of how tree life is no longer given the reverence it deserves. It should be noted that the activity of commercial logging is going to dilapidate ecosystems and posses a threat to the biological well being of both fauna and flora.

Assessments show that legal timber trade is harmful. In fact, deforestation due to illegal logging is negligible. Timber from illegal activities is a small percentage of the bulk that circulates in the global timer industry.

Logging has therefore proven to be a major cause of loss of forest cover. It is true that countries which carry out logging have a relatively high impact of losing sustainable ecosystems.

Indeed, the period of 30 years from now is very pivotal as far forest ecosystems are concerned. According to the current rate of commercial logging and deforestation for the sake of habitation, this period is going to determine the future of diverse natural forest ecosystems.

Policies interventions made during this period will play a vital role. An implicit decision of saving the world’s ecosystems is indeed vital (Masood & Shah, 2012).

This is a serious situation and more united stewardship of forests needs to be put in place. Governments should take this issue without hesitation. This is the time to regulate the international timber industry.

Betts, R. A., Falloon, P. D., Goldewijk, K. K. and Ramankutty, N. (2001) Biogeophysical effects of land use on climate: Model simulations of radiative forcing and large- scale temperature change . Agriculture for Meteor , 142, 216-233.

Bonan, G. B., (2008) Forests and climate change: Forcings, feedbacks, and the climate benefits of forests. Science , 320 (3), 1444- 1449.

Lawrence, P. et al (2012). Simulating the biogeochemical and biogeophysical impacts of transient land cover change and wood harvest in the community climate system model (CCSM4) from 1850 to 2100. Journal of Climate , 25(9), 3071-3095.

Masood, M., & Shah, F. (2012). Dilemma of third world countries – problems facing Pakistan energy crisis a case-in-point. International Journal of Business and Management , 7(5), 231-246.

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IvyPanda. (2019, April 18). The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-impact-of-logging-and-deforestations-on-an-ecosystem-critical-writing/

"The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem." IvyPanda , 18 Apr. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/the-impact-of-logging-and-deforestations-on-an-ecosystem-critical-writing/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem'. 18 April.

IvyPanda . 2019. "The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem." April 18, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-impact-of-logging-and-deforestations-on-an-ecosystem-critical-writing/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem." April 18, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-impact-of-logging-and-deforestations-on-an-ecosystem-critical-writing/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem." April 18, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-impact-of-logging-and-deforestations-on-an-ecosystem-critical-writing/.

Essay on Deforestation for Students and Children

500+ words essay on deforestation.

Deforestation is the cutting down of trees in the forest in a large number. Deforestation has always been a threat to our environment. But still many humans are continuing this ill practice. Moreover, Deforestation is causing ecological imbalance. Yet, some selfish people have to fill their pockets. Therefore they do not even think about it once. So, the government is trying countermeasures to avert the harm to the environment .

The main purpose of deforestation is to increase the land area. Also, this land area is to set up new industries. And, this all is because of the increase in population. As the population increases the demand for products also increase. So rich businessmen set up these industries to increase profit.

Harmful Effects of Deforestation

There are many harmful effects of deforestation. Some of them are below: Soil erosion: Soil erosion is the elimination of the upper layer of the soil. It takes place when there is removing of trees that bind the soil. As a result wind and water carries away the top layer of the soil.

Moreover, disasters like landslides take place because of this. Furthermore, soil erosion is responsible for various floods. As trees are not present to stop the waters from heavy rainfall’s gush directly to the plains. This results in damaging of colonies where people are living.

Global Warming: Global warming is the main cause of the change in our environment. These seasons are now getting delayed. Moreover, there is an imbalance in their ratios. The temperatures are reaching its extreme points. This year it was 50 degrees in the plains, which is most of all. Furthermore, the glaciers in the Himalayan ranges are melting.

As a result, floods are affecting the hilly regions of our country and the people living there. Moreover, the ratio of water suitable for drinking is also decreasing.

Impact on the water cycle: Since through transpiration, trees release soil water into the environment. Thus cutting of them is decreasing the rate of water in the atmosphere. So clouds are not getting formed. As a result, the agricultural grounds are not receiving proper rainfall. Therefore it is indirectly affecting humans only.

A great threat to wildlife: Deforestation is affecting wildlife as well. Many animals like Dodo, Sabre-toothed Cat, Tasmanian Tiger are already extinct. Furthermore, some animals are on the verge of extinction. That’s because they have lost habitat or their place of living. This is one of the major issues for wildlife protectors.

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How to Avert Deforestation?

Deforestation can be averted by various countermeasures. First of all, we should afforestation which is growing of trees in the forest. This would help to resolve the loss of the trees cut down. Moreover, the use of plant-based products should increase.

This would force different industries to grow more trees. As a result, the environment will also get benefit from it. Furthermore, people should grow small plants in their houses. That will help the environment to regain its ability. At last, the government should take strict actions against people. Especially those who are illegally cutting down trees.

FAQs on Essay on Deforestation

Q1. Why is deforestation harmful to our environment?

A1. Deforestation is harmful to our environment because it is creating different problems. These problems are soil erosion, global warming. Moreover, it is also causing different disasters like floods and landslides.

Q2. How are animals affected by deforestation?

A2. Deforestation affects animals as they have lost their habitat. Moreover, herbivores animals get their food from plants and trees. As a result, they are not getting proper food to eat, which in turn is resulting in their extinction

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Deforestation.

Deforestation is the intentional clearing of forested land.

Biology, Ecology, Conservation

Trees are cut down for timber, waiting to be transported and sold.

Photograph by Esemelwe

Deforestation is the purposeful clearing of forested land. Throughout history and into modern times, forests have been razed to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction.

Deforestation has greatly altered landscapes around the world. About 2,000 years ago, 80 percent of Western Europe was forested; today the figure is 34 percent. In North America, about half of the forests in the eastern part of the continent were cut down from the 1600s to the 1870s for timber and agriculture. China has lost great expanses of its forests over the past 4,000 years and now just over 20 percent of it is forested. Much of Earth’s farmland was once forests.

Today, the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring in tropical rainforests, aided by extensive road construction into regions that were once almost inaccessible. Building or upgrading roads into forests makes them more accessible for exploitation. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a big contributor to deforestation in the tropics. With this agricultural method, farmers burn large swaths of forest, allowing the ash to fertilize the land for crops. The land is only fertile for a few years, however, after which the farmers move on to repeat the process elsewhere. Tropical forests are also cleared to make way for logging, cattle ranching, and oil palm and rubber tree plantations.

Deforestation can result in more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. That is because trees take in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis , and carbon is locked chemically in their wood. When trees are burned, this carbon returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide . With fewer trees around to take in the carbon dioxide , this greenhouse gas accumulates in the atmosphere and accelerates global warming.

Deforestation also threatens the world’s biodiversity . Tropical forests are home to great numbers of animal and plant species. When forests are logged or burned, it can drive many of those species into extinction. Some scientists say we are already in the midst of a mass-extinction episode.

More immediately, the loss of trees from a forest can leave soil more prone to erosion . This causes the remaining plants to become more vulnerable to fire as the forest shifts from being a closed, moist environment to an open, dry one.

While deforestation can be permanent, this is not always the case. In North America, for example, forests in many areas are returning thanks to conservation efforts.

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Essay on Deforestation

List of essay on deforestation in english, essay on deforestation – essay 1 (150 words), essay on deforestation – essay 2 (250 words), essay on deforestation – essay 3 (300 words), essay on deforestation: causes and drawbacks – essay 4 (400 words), essay on deforestation: with causes and solution – essay 5 (500 words), essay on deforestation: introduction, impact, control and conclusion – essay 6 (650 words), essay on deforestation: causes and effects – essay 7 (750 words), essay on deforestation: with solution – essay 8 (1000 words).

Introduction:

Deforestation is the process of clearing trees and forest for other uses. Deforestation usually occurs due to city expansion. As habitats increase in cities, there is a need to create more space the for homes, organizations, and factories. This, however, has a damning effect on our environment.

Effect of Deforestation on the Environment:

Deforestation means fewer trees and more land. This has a serious adverse effect on our environment. On one hand, deforestation makes some animals homeless. Animals that survive in the forest might go extinct with less forest. On the other hand, deforestation is also the biggest cause of climate change around the world.

Preventing Deforestation:

Reducing or preventing deforestation is easier said than done. This is because trees are cut down because there is a pressing need to do so. Thus, to prevent deforestation we must try to reduce that need by making smarter choices in paper usage, city planning, migration, etc.

Conclusion:

The essence of plant life in the forest is unquestionable. To ensure a greener environment we must all join the efforts in reducing deforestation.

Deforestation is definitely one of the most troubling of all problems which has plagued our environment. It is important more than ever to take care of the green cover or else it can jeopardize the existence of life on Earth. It is owing to the presence of green trees that we get the oxygen needed to breathe in.

However, because of excessive exploitation by humans, it has been seen that the trees are being cut down mercilessly. This act of cleaning the green cover is known as deforestation.

Educate people:

The best way to handle the problem of deforestation is by making sure that we educate the masses regarding the importance of green cover. When people understand as to how deforestation is leading to grave consequences, they will get the incentive to plant trees rather than uproot them.

Protect the Environment:

As we have continued to exploit the environment in a way that it is hard to get things back to normal, it is now important to immediately start protecting the environment. A lot of natural calamities are occurring these days because the ecosystem balance has been disturbed. Deforestation alone is responsible for a major amount of problems.

So, you need to understand as to how you can come up with ways to excite people about planting more trees and doing their bit for the sake of the environment. Think of your children and grand children. If we continue with our aggressive deforestation campaigns, they are not likely to have a healthy environment for survival. Is that what we really want?

Deforestation can be defined as the removal of trees and clearing of forests for the personal and commercial benefits of human beings. Deforestation has emerged as one of the biggest man-made disasters recently. Every year, more and more trees and vegetation are being erased just to fulfill the various needs of the human race.

Deforestation happens for many reasons. The growing population is one of them. Rising human population needs more area for residential purpose. For this, forests are either burned down or cut to make space for constructing homes and apartments.

Deforestation is also done for commercial purposes. This includes setting up of factories, industries, and towers, etc. The enormous requirements of feeding the human race also create a burden on the land. As a result, clearing land for agricultural purposes leads to deforestation.

Deforestation impacts our earth in several ways. Trees are natural air purifiers. They absorb the carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Deforestation results in uncontrolled air pollution. When there are fewer trees, there is lesser absorption of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Deforestation also disturbs the water cycle. Forests absorb the groundwater and release the water vapors to form clouds, which in turn cause rains. Roots of trees hold the soil intact and prevent floods. But when there are no trees, different kinds of natural calamities are bound to happen.

With deforestation, chances of floods, drought, global warming, and disturbed weather cycle all come into the play. Not only that, the disappearance of forests means the extinction of wild animals and plants, which are highly important parts of our ecosystem.

In order to curb these disasters, we must plant more trees. Restoration of existing vegetation is equally essential. Population control is another indirect method to save trees and forest areas.

Deforestation is the process of cutting down of trees and forests completely or partially for different reasons like manufacturing different products with various parts of the tree as raw material, to build structures and other buildings, etc. Deforestation in recent days has become the curse of our world that resulted in the destruction of nature and the environment.

Cause and Drawbacks:

Deforestation is mainly done for making better living assets for humans and this one side thought is the biggest drawback of this issue. Instead of doing only the cutting part humans should practice forestation along with deforestation. Whenever a tree or a forest is cut, another one should be planted at the same place or on other lands to promote the forestation.

Deforestation is the main cause for many natural deficiencies and the destruction of many animal, plant and bird species. If the practice of cutting down trees continues, then eventually even the world may get destructed along with the extinction of the human race.

It’s not like trees shouldn’t be used for any kind of production and urbanization or industrialization shouldn’t be done for the development, but the main factor is to compensate for every minus done. Through this, there will be a balancing between the reduction and plantation which will help, to an extent, in the rectification of problems faced by the world due to deforestation.

Deforestation has also affected the atmospheric air combination. The carbon content in the atmosphere has considerably increased over years due to many human activities like uncontrolled fuel combustion.

Forest has played a massive function of inhaling the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and exhaling oxygen during the daytime while they prepare food for themselves. This process is the reason for maintaining a balanced oxygen and carbon level in the atmosphere and that makes the life of us humans to breathe free.

Population growth is undeniably the major factor behind the increased deforestation level. The increased demand for more assets for better living has increased the need for deforestation as well. In such cases forestation should also be made as a follow-up process.

Controlling the overuse of assets can also help in reducing the deforestation rate. If humans start to use products that use a tree as raw material reasonably then it will help in avoiding deforestation as well. Deforestation not only is a life-threatening scenario for many animals and birds, but also the whole human species.

Deforestation refers to the elimination of plants and trees from a region. Deforestation also includes the clearing of jungles and plants from the region due to the numerous commercial motives.

Different Causes of Deforestation:

The below are the different causes of deforestation:

1. Overgrazing:

Overgrazing in jungles finishes recently renewed development. It makes the soil additional compact and invulnerable. The fertility of the soil also reduces owing to the devastation of organic substance. Overgrazing also results in the desertification and the soil erosion. Deforestation results in decreasing the overall soil’s productivity.

2. Shifting Cultivation:

Numerous agriculturalists destroy the jungle for farming and commercial motives and once productiveness of soil is shattered owing to recurrent harvesting, a fresh forest region is devastated. Hence, farmers must be recommended to utilize a similar area for agriculture and use some upgraded farming techniques and stop the deforestation.

3. Fuel Wood:

The maximum amount of forest is destroyed for the fuel wood. Around 86% of the fuel wood is utilized in rural regions in comparison to the 14% in urban parts and hence lead to more deforestation.

4. Forest Fires:

Recurrent fires in the forest regions are one of the major reasons of deforestation. Few incidents of fires are minor whereas the maximum of them are huge.

The industries related to the plywood and timber is mostly accountable for the deforestation. In fact, the huge demand for wooden things has resulted in the quick reduction of the forest.

6. Industry Establishment:

At times the industrial unit is constructed after deforestation. It means for a small achievement of few people, all other people have to bear a permanent loss. In this procedure, wild animals, valuable plant, and unusual birds get devastated. In fact, it adversely affects the quality of the environment.

7. Violation of Forest:

One more reason of deforestation is a violation by tribal on the land of forest for cultivation and other motives. Even though such type of land has a virtuous support for agriculture creation but still it creates environmental threats.

8. Forest Diseases:

Numerous diseases are instigated by rusts, parasitic fungi, nematodes and viruses that result in demise and deterioration of jungle. Fresh saplings are devastated owing to the occurrence of nematodes. Numerous diseases like blister rust, heart rot, and phloem necrosis, oak will, and Dutch elm, etc. destroy the jungle in large quantities.

9. Landslide:

The landslide lead to the deforestation in the mountains is a question of worry. It happened largely in the regions where growing actions are proceeding for the previous few years. The building of highways and railways mainly in hilly lands as well as the structure of large irrigation plans have resulted in enough deforestation and speeded the natural procedure of denudation.

Worldwide Solution for the Deforestation:

The jungle is an essential natural reserve for any nation and deforestation slow down a nation’s growth. To encounter the necessities of the growing population, simple resources might be attained only with the help of afforestation. It is actually the arrangement of implanting plants for food and food growth. Moreover, the nurseries have a significant part in increasing the coverage of the forest area.

Deforestation is the cutting down of trees. It is basically changing the use of land to a different purpose other than the planting of trees.

There are many reasons which have led to large levels of deforestation all over the world. One of the major causes is ever growing population of the world. With the growth in population, the need for more land to live has been rising. This has further led to cutting down of trees. Also, with modernisation, there has been a substantial increase in the requirement of land for setting up of industries. This has again contributed to deforestation.

Mining is another activity of humans which has led to large-scale deforestation in many areas. The need to build road and rail network in order to increase connectivity to the mines has led to cutting down of trees. This has altered the climatic conditions in these areas.

Deforestation has had a huge impact on the environment. Lack of trees has led to less release of water vapour in the air. This has, in turn, led to the alteration of rainfall patterns in different regions. India is a country which is dependent on monsoon rains for agriculture. Frequent droughts and floods caused due to deforestation have affected the lives of many in different parts of the country.

Moreover, trees absorb the carbon-dioxide from the air and help to purify it. Without trees around us, the presence of harmful gases in the air has been rising. This has also led to global warming which is again a major environmental concern. Also, the ever-rising pollution level, especially in many cities in India is due to vast deforestation only.

Additionally, trees bind the soil around them and prevent soil erosion. Deforestation has led to the soil being washed away with winds and rain, making the land unfit for agriculture. Also, trees and forests are the homes to different species of wildlife. With shrinking forests, several of the wildlife has become extinct as they were not able to cope with the changing conditions. Also, there have been increased man and wildlife conflicts in recent times as the animals are forced to venture in the cities in search of food. All these are severe effects of deforestation and need urgent attention by all.

The Perfect Example:

New Delhi is the capital of India. There was once a time when Delhi was a beautiful city. But with modernisation, increase in population, deforestation and mining in the nearby Aravalli hills, Delhi has been reduced to a gas chamber. Such is the impact the Delhi has become one of the most polluted cities in the world. What better example can be there to understand what deforestation has led us to?

There are many ways in which we can reduce deforestation. We must protect our forests. Moreover, we must mark adequate land for our farming needs. There are some laws already in place which prohibit people from unnecessary felling of trees. What needs to be done is the proper execution of the rules so that everyone abides by it. Also, stricter punishments need to be in place for violators so as to deter other people from disobeying the laws. Alternatively, people need to ensure that for every tree felled, equal numbers of trees are planted so that the balance of nature can be maintained. Summarily, it has to be a collective duty of all and just the governments alone, if we really need to reduce deforestation.

It is true that we all need space to live. With the ever-growing population and urbanisation, there has been more than ever need to cut trees and make space. However, we must realise that it is not possible for us to live without having trees around us. Trees bring so many benefits such as giving us oxygen, utilising the harmful carbon dioxide and so many products we need in our daily lives. Without trees around us, there would be no life on the earth. We should all do the needful to protect trees and reduce deforestation.

Deforestation is also known as clearing or clearance of trees. It can be said to mean removal of strands of trees or forests and the conversion of such area of land to a use that is totally non-forest in nature. Some deforestation examples are the converting of areas of forest to urban, ranches or farms use. The area of land that undergoes the most deforestation is the tropical rainforests. It is important to note that forests cover more than 31 percent in total land area of the surface of the earth.

There are a lot of different reasons why deforestation occurs: some tree are being cut down for building or as fuel (timber or coal), while areas of land are to be used as plantation and also as pasture to feed livestock. When trees are removed with properly replacing them, there can as a result be aridity, loss of biodiversity and even habitat damage. We have also had cases of deforestation used in times of war to starve the enemy.

Causes of Deforestation:

It has been discovered that the major and primary deforestation cause is agriculture. Studies have shown that about 48 percent of all deforestation is as a result of subsistence farming and 32 percent of deforestation is as a result of commercial agriculture. Also, it was discovered that logging accounts for about 14% of the total deforestation and 5% is from the removal for fuel wood.

There has been no form of agreement from experts on if industrial form of logging is a very important contributing factor to deforestation globally. Some experts have argued that the clearing of forests is something poor people do more as a result of them not having other alternatives. Other experts are of the belief that the poor seldom clear forests because they do not have the resources needed to do that. A study has also revealed that increase in population as a result of fertility rates that are very high are not a major driver of deforestation and they only influenced less than 8% of the cases of deforestation.

The Environmental Effects of Deforestation:

Deforestation has a lot of negative effects on our planet and environment.

A few of the areas where it negatively affects our environment are discussed below:

i. Atmospheric Effect:

Global warming has deforestation as one of its major contributing factors and deforestation is also a key cause of greenhouse effect. About 20% of all the emission of greenhouse gases is as a result of tropical deforestation. The land in an area that is deforested heats up quicker and it gets to a temperature that is higher than normal, causing a change in solar energy absorption, flow of water vapours and even wind flows and all of these affects the local climate of the area and also the global climate.

Also, the burning of plants in the forest in order to carry out clearing of land, incineration cause a huge amount of carbon dioxide release which is a major and important contributor to the global warming.

ii. Hydrological Effect:

Various researches have shown that deforestation greatly affects water cycle. Groundwater is extracted by trees through the help of their roots; the water extracted is then released into the surrounding atmosphere. If we remove a part of the forest, there will not be transpiration of water like it should be and this result in the climate being a lot drier. The water content of the soil is heavily reduced by deforestation and also atmospheric moisture as well as groundwater. There is a reduced level of water intake that the trees can extract as a result of the dry soil. Soil cohesion is also reduced by deforestation and this can result in landslides, flooding and erosion.

iii. Effect on Soil:

As a direct result of the plant litter on the surface, there is a minimal and reduced erosion rate in forests largely undisturbed. Deforestation increases the erosion rate as a result of the subsequent decrease in the quantity of cover of litter available. The litter cover actually serves as a protection for the soil from all varieties of surface runoff. When mechanized equipments and machineries are used in forestry operations, there can be a resulting erosion increase as a result of the development of roads in the forests.

iv. Effect on Biodiversity:

There is a biodiversity decline due to deforestation. Deforestation can lead to the death and extinction of a lot of species of animals and plants. The habitat of various animals are taken away as a result of deforestation.

The total coverage of forests on the earth’s landmass is 30 percent and the fact the people are destroying them is worrying. Research reveals that majority of the tropical forests on earth are being destroyed. We are almost at half the forest landmass in destruction. How would earth look life without forests? It will be a total disaster if deforestation is encouraged. Deforestation is a human act in which forests are permanently destroyed in order to create settlement area and use the trees for industries like paper manufacture, wood and construction. A lot of forests have been destroyed and the impact has been felt through climate change and extinction of animals due to destruction of the ecosystem. The impacts of deforestation are adverse and there is need to prevent and control it before it can get any worse.

Deforestation is mainly a human activity affected by many factors. Overpopulation contributed to deforestation because there is need to create a settlement area for the increasing number of people on earth and the need for urbanization for economic reasons. Recently, population has greatly risen in the world and people require shelter as a basic need. Forests are destroyed in order for people to find land to build a shelter and then trees are further cut to build those houses. Overpopulation is a major threat to the forest landmass and if not controlled, people will continue to occupy the forests until there is no more forest coverage on earth.

Another factor influencing deforestation is industrialization. Industries that use trees to manufacture their product e.g. paper and wood industries have caused major destruction of forests. The problem with industries is the large-scale need for trees which causes extensive deforestation. The use of timber in industries is a treat to forests all over the world. In as much as we need furniture, paper and homes, it is not worth the massive destruction of our forests.

Fires are also a cause of deforestation. During episodes of drought, fire spreads widely and burns down trees. The fire incidences could result from human activities like smoking or charcoal burning in the forests. Drought due to adverse weather changes in global warming is a natural disaster that claim the lives of people and living things.

Agricultural activities such as farming and livestock keeping also cause deforestation because of the land demand in those activities. Deforestation for farming purpose involves clearing all the vegetation on the required land and using it for and then burring the vegetation hence the name ‘slash and burn agriculture’. The ranches required for cattle keeping among other livestock require a large area that is clear from trees.

Impacts of Deforestation:

Deforestation has a great impact on the ecosystem in different ways. Climate change is influenced by deforestation because trees influence weather directly. Trees usually act to protect against strong winds and erosion but in its absence, natural disasters like floods and storms could be experienced. Also, tree are important in replenishing the air in the atmosphere. Trees have the ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen. Without trees, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be increased. Because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it causes global warming.

Global warming is a serious environmental issue that causes adverse climatic changes and affects life on earth. Extreme weather conditions like storms, drought and floods. These weather conditions are not conducive for humans and other living things on earth. Natural disasters as a result of global warming are very destructive both to animate and inanimate objects in the environment.

Loss of species due to deforestation has negatively affected biodiversity. Biodiversity is a highly valued aspect of life on earth and its interruption is a loss. There is a loss of habitat for species to exist in as a result of deforestation and therefore species face extinction. Extinction of some rare species is a threat we are currently facing. Animals that live and depend on forest vegetation for food will also suffer and eventually die of hunger. Survival has been forced on animals of the jungle due to deforestation and that is why human wildlife conflict is being experienced.

The water cycle on earth is negatively affected by deforestation. The existence of water vapor in the atmosphere is maintained by trees. Absence of trees cause a reduced vapor retention in the atmosphere which result in adverse climate changes. Trees and other forest vegetation are important in preventing water pollution because they prevent the contaminated runoff into water sources like rivers, lakes and oceans. Without trees, pollution of water is more frequent and therefore the water will be unsafe for consumption by human and animals.

Solutions to Deforestation:

Based on the serious impact of deforestation, it is only safe if solutions are sought to end this problem. The ultimate solution is definitely restoration of the forest landmass on earth. The restoration can be done by encouraging the planting of trees, a process called reforestation. Although reforestation will not completely solve the impacts of deforestation, it will restore a habitat for the wild animals and slowly restore the ecosystem. Major impacts like concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere require another approach. Human activities that contribute to carbon dioxide gas emission to the atmosphere have to be reduced through strict policies for industries and finding alternative energy sources that do not produce greenhouse gases.

Another solution is public awareness. People have to be made aware that deforestation has negative effects so that they can reduce the act. Through awareness, people can also be taught on ways of reducing the population e.g., family planning. On World Environment Day, people are encouraged to participate in activities like tree planting in order to conserve environment and that is how the awareness takes place.

In conclusion, deforestation is a human activity that is destructive and should be discouraged. Environmental conservation is our responsibility because we have only one earth to live in.

Deforestation , Environment , Forests

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• Published: 06 May 2020

Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis

• Mauro Bologna 1   na1 &
• Gerardo Aquino 2 , 3 , 4   na1  

Scientific Reports volume  10 , Article number:  7631 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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• Applied mathematics
• Environmental impact
• Population dynamics
• Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics

In this paper we afford a quantitative analysis of the sustainability of current world population growth in relation to the parallel deforestation process adopting a statistical point of view. We consider a simplified model based on a stochastic growth process driven by a continuous time random walk, which depicts the technological evolution of human kind, in conjunction with a deterministic generalised logistic model for humans-forest interaction and we evaluate the probability of avoiding the self-destruction of our civilisation. Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse.

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Introduction.

In the last few decades, the debate on climate change has assumed global importance with consequences on national and global policies. Many factors due to human activity are considered as possible responsible of the observed changes: among these water and air contamination (mostly greenhouse effect) and deforestation are the mostly cited. While the extent of human contribution to the greenhouse effect and temperature changes is still a matter of discussion, the deforestation is an undeniable fact. Indeed before the development of human civilisations, our planet was covered by 60 million square kilometres of forest 1 . As a result of deforestation, less than 40 million square kilometres currently remain 2 . In this paper, we focus on the consequence of indiscriminate deforestation.

Trees’ services to our planet range from carbon storage, oxygen production to soil conservation and water cycle regulation. They support natural and human food systems and provide homes for countless species, including us, through building materials. Trees and forests are our best atmosphere cleaners and, due to the key role they play in the terrestrial ecosystem, it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, on Earth without them. In this sense, the debate on climate change will be almost obsolete in case of a global deforestation of the planet. Starting from this almost obvious observation, we investigate the problem of the survival of humanity from a statistical point of view. We model the interaction between forests and humans based on a deterministic logistic-like dynamics, while we assume a stochastic model for the technological development of the human civilisation. The former model has already been applied in similar contexts 3 , 4 while the latter is based on data and model of global energy consumption 5 , 6 used as a proxy for the technological development of a society. This gives solidity to our discussion and we show that, keeping the current rate of deforestation, statistically the probability to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse, is very low. We connect such probability to survive to the capability of humankind to spread and exploit the resources of the full solar system. According to Kardashev scale 7 , 8 , which measures a civilisation’s level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy they are able to use, in order to spread through the solar system we need to be able to harness the energy radiated by the Sun at a rate of ≈4 × 10 26 Watt. Our current energy consumption rate is estimated in ≈10 13 Watt 9 . As showed in the subsections “Statistical Model of technological development” and “Numerical results” of the following section, a successful outcome has a well defined threshold and we conclude that the probability of avoiding a catastrophic collapse is very low, less than 10% in the most optimistic estimate.

Model and Results

Deforestation.

The deforestation of the planet is a fact 2 . Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million Km 2 of forests around the world were cut down 10 which amounts to 2 × 10 5 Km 2 per year. At this rate all the forests would disappear approximatively in 100–200 years. Clearly it is unrealistic to imagine that the human society would start to be affected by the deforestation only when the last tree would be cut down. The progressive degradation of the environment due to deforestation would heavily affect human society and consequently the human collapse would start much earlier.

Curiously enough, the current situation of our planet has a lot in common with the deforestation of Easter Island as described in 3 . We therefore use the model introduced in that reference to roughly describe the humans-forest interaction. Admittedly, we are not aiming here for an exact exhaustive model. It is probably impossible to build such a model. What we propose and illustrate in the following sections, is a simplified model which nonetheless allows us to extrapolate the time scales of the processes involved: i.e. the deterministic process describing human population and resource (forest) consumption and the stochastic process defining the economic and technological growth of societies. Adopting the model in 3 (see also 11 ) we have for the humans-forest dynamics

where N represent the world population and R the Earth surface covered by forest. β is a positive constant related to the carrying capacity of the planet for human population, r is the growth rate for humans (estimated as r  ~ 0.01 years −1 ) 12 , a 0 may be identified as the technological parameter measuring the rate at which humans can extract the resources from the environment, as a consequence of their reached technological level. r ’ is the renewability parameter representing the capability of the resources to regenerate, (estimated as r ’ ~ 0.001 years −1 ) 13 , R c the resources carrying capacity that in our case may be identified with the initial 60 million square kilometres of forest. A closer look at this simplified model and at the analogy with Easter Island on which is based, shows nonetheless, strong similarities with our current situation. Like the old inhabitants of Easter Island we too, at least for few more decades, cannot leave the planet. The consumption of the natural resources, in particular the forests, is in competition with our technological level. Higher technological level leads to growing population and higher forest consumption (larger a 0 ) but also to a more effective use of resources. With higher technological level we can in principle develop technical solutions to avoid/prevent the ecological collapse of our planet or, as last chance, to rebuild a civilisation in the extraterrestrial space (see section on the Fermi paradox). The dynamics of our model for humans-forest interaction in Eqs. ( 1 , 2 ), is typically characterised by a growing human population until a maximum is reached after which a rapid disastrous collapse in population occurs before eventually reaching a low population steady state or total extinction. We will use this maximum as a reference for reaching a disastrous condition. We call this point in time the “no-return point” because if the deforestation rate is not changed before this time the human population will not be able to sustain itself and a disastrous collapse or even extinction will occur. As a first approximation 3 , since the capability of the resources to regenerate, r ′, is an order of magnitude smaller than the growing rate for humans, r , we may neglect the first term in the right hand-side of Eq. ( 2 ). Therefore, working in a regime of the exploitation of the resources governed essentially by the deforestation, from Eq. ( 2 ) we can derive the rate of tree extinction as

The actual population of the Earth is N  ~ 7.5 × 10 9 inhabitants with a maximum carrying capacity estimated 14 of N c  ~ 10 10 inhabitants. The forest carrying capacity may be taken as 1 R c  ~ 6 × 10 7 Km 2 while the actual surface of forest is \(R\lesssim 4\times {10}^{7}\) Km 2 . Assuming that β is constant, we may estimate this parameter evaluating the equality N c ( t ) =  βR ( t ) at the time when the forests were intact. Here N c ( t ) is the instantaneous human carrying capacity given by Eq. ( 1 ). We obtain β  ~  N c / R c  ~ 170.

In alternative we may evaluate β using actual data of the population growth 15 and inserting it in Eq. ( 1 ). In this case we obtain a range \(700\lesssim \beta \lesssim 900\) that gives a slightly favourable scenario for the human kind (see below and Fig.  4 ). We stress anyway that this second scenario depends on many factors not least the fact that the period examined in 15 is relatively short. On the contrary β  ~ 170 is based on the accepted value for the maximum human carrying capacity. With respect to the value of parameter a 0 , adopting the data relative to years 2000–2012 of ref. 10 ,we have

The time evolution of system ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) is plotted in Figs.  1 and 2 . We note that in Fig.  1 the numerical value of the maximum of the function N ( t ) is N M  ~ 10 10 estimated as the carrying capacity for the Earth population 14 . Again we have to stress that it is unrealistic to think that the decline of the population in a situation of strong environmental degradation would be a non-chaotic and well-ordered decline, that is also way we take the maximum in population and the time at which occurs as the point of reference for the occurrence of an irreversible catastrophic collapse, namely a ‘no-return’ point.

On the left: plot of the solution of Eq. ( 1 ) with the initial condition N 0  = 6 × 10 9 at initial time t  = 2000 A.C. On the right: plot of the solution of Eq. ( 2 ) with the initial condition R 0  = 4 × 10 7 . Here β  = 700 and a 0  = 10 −12 .

On the left: plot of the solution of Eq. ( 1 ) with the initial condition N 0  = 6 × 10 9 at initial time t  = 2000 A.C. On the right: plot of the solution of Eq. ( 2 ) with the initial condition R 0  = 4 × 10 7 . Here β  = 170 and a 0  = 10 −12 .

Statistical model of technological development

According to Kardashev scale 7 , 8 , in order to be able to spread through the solar system, a civilisation must be capable to build a Dyson sphere 16 , i.e. a maximal technological exploitation of most the energy from its local star, which in the case of the Earth with the Sun would correspond to an energy consumption of E D  ≈ 4 × 10 26 Watts, we call this value Dyson limit. Our actual energy consumption is estimated in E c  ≈ 10 13 Watts (Statistical Review of World Energy source) 9 . To describe our technological evolution, we may roughly schematise the development as a dichotomous random process

where T is the level of technological development of human civilisation that we can also identify with the energy consumption. α is a constant parameter describing the technological growth rate (i.e. of T ) and ξ ( t ) a random variable with values 0, 1. We consider therefore, based on data of global energy consumption 5 , 6 an exponential growth with fluctuations mainly reflecting changes in global economy. We therefore consider a modulated exponential growth process where the fluctuations in the growth rate are captured by the variable ξ ( t ). This variable switches between values 0, 1 with waiting times between switches distributed with density ψ ( t ). When ξ ( t ) = 0 the growth stops and resumes when ξ switches to ξ ( t ) = 1. If we consider T more strictly as describing the technological development, ξ ( t ) reflects the fact that investments in research can have interruptions as a consequence of alternation of periods of economic growth and crisis. With the following transformation,

differentiating both sides respect to t and using Eq. ( 5 ), we obtain for the transformed variable W

where \(\bar{\xi }(t)=2[\xi (t)-\langle \xi \rangle ]\) and 〈ξ 〉 is the average of ξ ( t ) so that \(\bar{\xi }(t)\) takes the values ±1.

The above equation has been intensively studied, and a general solution for the probability distribution P ( W , t ) generated by a generic waiting time distribution can be found in literature 17 . Knowing the distribution we may evaluate the first passage time distribution in reaching the necessary level of technology to e.g. live in the extraterrestrial space or develop any other way to sustain population of the planet. This characteristic time has to be compared with the time that it will take to reach the no-return point. Knowing the first passage time distribution 18 we will be able to evaluate the probability to survive for our civilisation.

If the dichotomous process is a Poissonian process with rate γ then the correlation function is an exponential, i.e.

and Eq. ( 7 ) generates for the probability density the well known telegrapher’s equation

We note that the approach that we are following is based on the assumption that at random times, exponentially distributed with rate γ , the dichotomous variable \(\bar{\xi }\) changes its value. With this assumption the solution to Eq. ( 9 ) is

where I n ( z ) are the modified Bessel function of the first kind. Transforming back to the variable T we have

where for sake of compactness we set

In Laplace transform we have

The first passage time distribution, in laplace transform, is evaluated as 19

Inverting the Laplace transform we obtain

which is confirmed (see Fig.  3 ) by numerical simulations. The time average to get the point x for the first time is given by

which interestingly is double the time it would take if a pure exponential growth occurred, depends on the ratio between final and initial value of T and is independent of γ . We also stress that this result depends on parameters directly related to the stage of development of the considered civilisation, namely the starting value T 1 , that we assume to be the energy consumption E c of the fully industrialised stage of the civilisation evolution and the final value T , that we assume to be the Dyson limit E D , and the technological growth rate α . For the latter we may, rather optimistically, choose the value α  = 0.345, following the Moore Law 20 (see next section). Using the data above, relative to our planet’s scenario, we obtain the estimate of 〈 t 〉 ≈ 180 years. From Figs.  1 and 2 we see that the estimate for the no-return time are 130 and 22 years for β  = 700 and β  = 170 respectively, with the latter being the most realistic value. In either case, these estimates based on average values, being less than 180 years, already portend not a favourable outcome for avoiding a catastrophic collapse. Nonetheless, in order to estimate the actual probability for avoiding collapse we cannot rely on average values, but we need to evaluate the single trajectories, and count the ones that manage to reach the Dyson limit before the ‘no-return point’. We implement this numerically as explained in the following.

(Left) Comparison between theoretical prediction of Eq. ( 15 ) (black curve) and numerical simulation of Eq. ( 3 ) (cyan curve) for γ  = 4 (arbitrary units). (Right) Comparison between theoretical prediction of Eq. ( 15 ) (red curve) and numerical simulation of Eq. ( 3 ) (black curve) for γ  = 1/4 (arbitrary units).

(Left panel) Probability p suc of reaching Dyson value before reaching “no-return” point as function of α and a for β  = 170. Parameter a is expressed in Km 2 ys −1 . (Right panel) 2D plot of p suc for a  = 1.5 × 10 −4 Km 2 ys −1 as a function of α . Red line is p suc for β  = 170. Black continuous lines (indistinguishable) are p suc for β  = 300 and 700 respectively (see also Fig.  6 ). Green dashed line indicates the value of α corresponding to Moore’s law.

Numerical results

We run simulations of Eqs. ( 1 ), ( 2 ) and ( 5 ) simultaneously for different values of of parameters a 0 and α for fixed β and we count the number of trajectories that reach Dyson limit before the population level reaches the “no-return point” after which rapid collapse occurs. More precisely, the evolution of T is stochastic due to the dichotomous random process ξ ( t ), so we generate the T ( t ) trajectories and at the same time we follow the evolution of the population and forest density dictated by the dynamics of Eqs. ( 1 ), ( 2 ) 3 until the latter dynamics reaches the no-return point (maximum in population followed by collapse). When this happens, if the trajectory in T ( t ) has reached the Dyson limit we count it as a success, otherwise as failure. This way we determine the probabilities and relative mean times in Figs.  5 , 6 and 7 . Adopting a weak sustainability point of view our model does not specify the technological mechanism by which the successful trajectories are able to find an alternative to forests and avoid collapse, we leave this undefined and link it exclusively and probabilistically to the attainment of the Dyson limit. It is important to notice that we link the technological growth process described by Eq. ( 5 ) to the economic growth and therefore we consider, for both economic and technological growth, a random sequence of growth and stagnation cycles, with mean periods of about 1 and 4 years in accordance with estimates for the driving world economy, i.e. the United States according to the National Bureau of Economic Research 21 .

Average time τ (in years) to reach Dyson value before hitting “no-return” point (success, left) and without meeting Dyson value (failure, right) as function of α and a for β  = 170. Plateau region (left panel) where τ  ≥ 50 corresponds to diverging τ , i.e. Dyson value not being reached before hitting “no-return” point and therefore failure. Plateau region at τ  = 0 (right panel), corresponds to failure not occurring, i.e. success. Parameter a is expressed in Km 2 ys −1 .

Probability p suc of reaching Dyson value before hitting “no-return” point as function of α and a for β  = 300 (left) and 700 (right). Parameter a is expressed in Km 2 ys −1 .

Probability of reaching Dyson value p suc before reaching “no-return” point as function of β and α for a  = 1.5 × 10 −4 Km 2 ys −1 .

In Eq. ( 1 , 2 ) we redefine the variables as N ′ =  N / R W and R ′ =  R / R W with \({R}_{W}\simeq 150\times {10}^{6}\,K{m}^{2}\) the total continental area, and replace parameter a 0 accordingly with a  =  a 0  ×  R W  = 1.5 × 10 −4 Km 2 ys −1 . We run simulations accordingly starting from values \({R{\prime} }_{0}\) and \({N{\prime} }_{0}\) , based respectively on the current forest surface and human population. We take values of a from 10 −5 to 3 × 10 −4 Km 2 ys −1 and for α from 0.01 ys −1 to 4.4 ys −1 . Results are shown in Figs.  4 and 6 . Figure  4 shows a threshold value for the parameter α , the technological growth rate, above which there is a non-zero probability of success. This threshold value increases with the value of the other parameter a . As shown in Fig.  7 this values depends as well on the value of β and higher values of β correspond to a more favourable scenario where the transition to a non-zero probability of success occurs for smaller α , i.e. for smaller, more accessible values, of technological growth rate. More specifically, left panel of Fig.  4 shows that, for the more realistic value β  = 170, a region of parameter values with non-zero probability of avoiding collapse corresponds to values of α larger than 0.5. Even assuming that the technological growth rate be comparable to the value α  = log(2)/2 = 0.345 ys −1 , given by the Moore Law (corresponding to a doubling in size every two years), therefore, it is unlikely in this regime to avoid reaching the the catastrophic ‘no-return point’. When the realistic value of a  = 1.5 × 10 4 Km 2 ys −1 estimated from Eq. ( 4 ), is adopted, in fact, a probability less than 10% is obtained for avoiding collapse with a Moore growth rate, even when adopting the more optimistic scenario corresponding to β  = 700 (black curve in right panel of Fig.  4 ). While an α larger than 1.5 is needed to have a non-zero probability of avoiding collapse when β  = 170 (red curve, same panel). As far as time scales are concerned, right panel of Fig.  5 shows for β  = 170 that even in the range α  > 0.5, corresponding to a non-zero probability of avoiding collapse, collapse is still possible, and when this occurs, the average time to the ‘no-return point’ ranges from 20 to 40 years. Left panel in same figure, shows for the same parameters, that in order to avoid catastrophe, our society has to reach the Dyson’s limit in the same average amount of time of 20–40 years.

In Fig.  7 we show the dependence of the model on the parameter β for a  = 1.5 × 10 −4 .

We run simulations of Eqs. ( 1 ), ( 2 ) and ( 5 ) simultaneously for different values of of parameters a 0 and α depending on β as explained in Methods and Results to generate Figs.  5 , 6 and 7 . Equations ( 1 ), ( 2 ) are integrated via standard Euler method. Eq. ( 5 ) is integrated as well via standard Euler method between the random changes of the variable ξ . The stochastic dichotomous process ξ is generated numerically in the following way: using the random number generator from gsl library we generate the times intervals between the changes of the dichotomous variable ξ  = 0, 1, with an exponential distribution(with mean values of 1 and 4 years respectively), we therefore obtain a time series of 0 and 1 for each trajectory. We then integrate Eq. ( 5 ) in time using this time series and we average over N  = 10000 trajectories. The latter procedure is used to carry out simulations in Figs.  3 and 4 as well in order to evaluate the first passage time probabilities. All simulations are implemented in C++.

Fermi paradox

In this section we briefly discuss a few considerations about the so called Fermi paradox that can be drawn from our model. We may in fact relate the Fermi paradox to the problem of resource consumption and self destruction of a civilisation. The origin of Fermi paradox dates back to a casual conversation about extraterrestrial life that Enrico Fermi had with E. Konopinski, E. Teller and H. York in 1950, during which Fermi asked the famous question: “where is everybody?”, since then become eponymous for the paradox. Starting from the closely related Drake equation 22 , 23 , used to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilisations in the Milky Way, the debate around this topic has been particularly intense in the past (for a more comprehensive covering we refer to Hart 24 , Freitas 25 and reference therein). Hart’s conclusion is that there are no other advanced or ‘technological’ civilisations in our galaxy as also supported recently by 26 based on a careful reexamination of Drake’s equation. In other words the terrestrial civilisation should be the only one living in the Milk Way. Such conclusions are still debated, but many of Hart’s arguments are undoubtedly still valid while some of them need to be rediscussed or updated. For example, there is also the possibility that avoiding communication might actually be an ‘intelligent’ choice and a possible explanation of the paradox. On several public occasions, in fact, Professor Stephen Hawking suggested human kind should be very cautious about making contact with extraterrestrial life. More precisely when questioned about planet Gliese 832c’s potential for alien life he once said: “One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this, but we should be wary of answering back”. Human history has in fact been punctuated by clashes between different civilisations and cultures which should serve as caveat. From the relatively soft replacement between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens (Kolodny 27 ) up to the violent confrontation between native Americans and Europeans, the historical examples of clashes and extinctions of cultures and civilisations have been quite numerous. Looking at human history Hawking’s suggestion appears as a wise warning and we cannot role out the possibility that extraterrestrial societies are following similar advice coming from their best minds.

With the help of new technologies capable of observing extrasolar planetary systems, searching and contacting alien life is becoming a concrete possibility (see for example Grimaldi 28 for a study on the chance of detecting extraterrestrial intelligence), therefore a discussion on the probability of this occurring is an important opportunity to assess also our current situation as a civilisation. Among Hart’s arguments, the self-destruction hypothesis especially needs to be rediscussed at a deeper level. Self-destruction following environmental degradation is becoming more and more an alarming possibility. While violent events, such as global war or natural catastrophic events, are of immediate concern to everyone, a relatively slow consumption of the planetary resources may be not perceived as strongly as a mortal danger for the human civilisation. Modern societies are in fact driven by Economy, and, without giving here a well detailed definition of “economical society”, we may agree that such a kind of society privileges the interest of its components with less or no concern for the whole ecosystem that hosts them (for more details see 29 for a review on Ecological Economics and its criticisms to mainstream Economics). Clear examples of the consequences of this type of societies are the international agreements about Climate Change. The Paris climate agreement 30 , 31 is in fact, just the last example of a weak agreement due to its strong subordination to the economic interests of the single individual countries. In contraposition to this type of society we may have to redefine a different model of society, a “cultural society”, that in some way privileges the interest of the ecosystem above the individual interest of its components, but eventually in accordance with the overall communal interest. This consideration suggests a statistical explanation of Fermi paradox: even if intelligent life forms were very common (in agreement with the mediocrity principle in one of its version 32 : “there is nothing special about the solar system and the planet Earth”) only very few civilisations would be able to reach a sufficient technological level so as to spread in their own solar system before collapsing due to resource consumption.

We are aware that several objections can be raised against this argument and we discuss below the one that we believe to be the most important. The main objection is that we do not know anything about extraterrestrial life. Consequently, we do not know the role that a hypothetical intelligence plays in the ecosystem of the planet. For example not necessarily the planet needs trees (or the equivalent of trees) for its ecosystem. Furthermore the intelligent form of life could be itself the analogous of our trees, so avoiding the problem of the “deforestation” (or its analogous). But if we assume that we are not an exception (mediocrity principle) then independently of the structure of the alien ecosystem, the intelligent life form would exploit every kind of resources, from rocks to organic resources (animal/vegetal/etc), evolving towards a critical situation. Even if we are at the beginning of the extrasolar planetology, we have strong indications that Earth-like planets have the volume magnitude of the order of our planet. In other words, the resources that alien civilisations have at their disposal are, as order of magnitude, the same for all of them, including ourselves. Furthermore the mean time to reach the Dyson limit as derived in Eq.  6 depends only on the ratio between final and initial value of T and therefore would be independent of the size of the planet, if we assume as a proxy for T energy consumption (which scales with the size of the planet), producing a rather general result which can be extended to other civilisations. Along this line of thinking, if we are an exception in the Universe we have a high probability to collapse or become extinct, while if we assume the mediocrity principle we are led to conclude that very few civilisations are able to reach a sufficient technological level so as to spread in their own solar system before the consumption of their planet’s resources triggers a catastrophic population collapse. The mediocrity principle has been questioned (see for example Kukla 33 for a critical discussion about it) but on the other hand the idea that the humankind is in some way “special” in the universe has historically been challenged several times. Starting with the idea of the Earth at the centre of the universe (geocentrism), then of the solar system as centre of the universe (Heliocentrism) and finally our galaxy as centre of the universe. All these beliefs have been denied by the facts. Our discussion, being focused on the resource consumption, shows that whether we assume the mediocrity principle or our “uniqueness” as an intelligent species in the universe, the conclusion does not change. Giving a very broad meaning to the concept of cultural civilisation as a civilisation not strongly ruled by economy, we suggest for avoiding collapse 34 that only civilisations capable of such a switch from an economical society to a sort of “cultural” society in a timely manner, may survive. This discussion leads us to the conclusion that, even assuming the mediocrity principle, the answer to “Where is everybody?” could be a lugubrious “(almost) everyone is dead”.

Conclusions

In conclusion our model shows that a catastrophic collapse in human population, due to resource consumption, is the most likely scenario of the dynamical evolution based on current parameters. Adopting a combined deterministic and stochastic model we conclude from a statistical point of view that the probability that our civilisation survives itself is less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario. Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilisation (see Fig.  5 ). Making the situation even worse, we stress once again that it is unrealistic to think that the decline of the population in a situation of strong environmental degradation would be a non-chaotic and well-ordered decline. This consideration leads to an even shorter remaining time. Admittedly, in our analysis, we assume parameters such as population growth and deforestation rate in our model as constant. This is a rough approximation which allows us to predict future scenarios based on current conditions. Nonetheless the resulting mean-times for a catastrophic outcome to occur, which are of the order of 2–4 decades (see Fig.  5 ), make this approximation acceptable, as it is hard to imagine, in absence of very strong collective efforts, big changes of these parameters to occur in such time scale. This interval of time seems to be out of our reach and incompatible with the actual rate of the resource consumption on Earth, although some fluctuations around this trend are possible 35 not only due to unforeseen effects of climate change but also to desirable human-driven reforestation. This scenario offers as well a plausible additional explanation to the fact that no signals from other civilisations are detected. In fact according to Eq. ( 16 ) the mean time to reach Dyson sphere depends on the ratio of the technological level T and therefore, assuming energy consumption (which scales with the size of the planet) as a proxy for T , such ratio is approximately independent of the size of the planet. Based on this observation and on the mediocrity principle, one could extend the results shown in this paper, and conclude that a generic civilisation has approximatively two centuries starting from its fully developed industrial age to reach the capability to spread through its own solar system. In fact, giving a very broad meaning to the concept of cultural civilisation as a civilisation not strongly ruled by economy, we suggest that only civilisations capable of a switch from an economical society to a sort of “cultural” society in a timely manner, may survive.

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Acknowledgements

M.B. and G.A. acknowledge Phy. C.A. for logistical support.

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Mauro Bologna and Gerardo Aquino.

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Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica-Electrónica, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile

Mauro Bologna

The Alan Turing Institute, London, UK

Gerardo Aquino

University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK

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Contributions

M.B. and G.A. equally contributed and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerardo Aquino .

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Bologna, M., Aquino, G. Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis. Sci Rep 10 , 7631 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63657-6

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223 Deforestation Topics for Essays, Research Papers, & Speeches

Nowadays, deforestation has affected landscapes all around the world. In the last 300 years, 35 percent of the world’s forests have been gone forever. Deforestation is a major problem contributing to the climate crisis and finding solutions is imperative to saving the Earth.

In this article, our expert team provides catchy essay topics and research titles about deforestation that you may use for your school or college assignment!

⭐ Top 12 Deforestation Essay Titles

✏️ deforestation essay prompts, 🔎 deforestation research topics, 💡 deforestation essay topics, 🗣️ deforestation topics for speech, 🪵 deforestation debate topics, 🍂 how to write a deforestation essay, 🔗 references.

• Deforestation as the central issue of the 21st century.
• How does deforestation affect wildlife?
• The socioeconomic drivers of deforestation.
• Who is responsible for deforestation?
• Indigenous people’s solutions to deforestation.
• How does deforestation alter bird migration patterns?
• What must we do to protect forests?
• Brazilian and Indonesian deforestation.
• Viable solutions to deforestation.
• Hidden medicinal treasures lost in deforestation.
• The impact of policy on deforestation.
• Are there any benefits of deforestation?

Have you ever found writing an essay on deforestation challenging? Then we have something for you! We’ve prepared deforestation essay prompts that may help you cope with this task.

The Cause and Effect of Deforestation Essay Prompt

Understanding the issue of deforestation requires paying attention to its leading causes and effects. In your essay, you can analyze the main factors contributing to this problem, such as climate change and logging .

Deforestation affects all aspects of the ecosystem, including the cycles of nature that regulate life on Earth, human societies, and the animals whose survival depends on forests. The questions below may be helpful for you in writing about the effects of deforestation:

• What are deforestation’s harmful impacts on the environment?
• How do people get affected by deforestation?
• How does deforestation influence animals?

Danger of Deforestation: Essay Prompt

Around 420 million hectares of forest have been destroyed since 1990. While deforestation has lessened in recent decades, it remains a severe concern. An essay on the dangers of deforestation can raise people’s awareness and save forests worldwide. For instance, you can take the following facts as the basis for your work:

• Deforestation raises the possibility of new pandemics.
• Soil erosion increases as a result of deforestation.
• Deforestation has a significant negative economic impact.
• Air pollution gets worse due to deforestation.
• Forest loss damages biomass and exacerbates climate change.

Deforestation Solutions: Essay Prompt

Stopping deforestation is vital for our planet. It is also one of the quickest and least expensive ways to mitigate global warming. In your essay on how to stop deforestation, you can focus on the following solutions:

• Recycling .
• Implementing “zero deforestation” policies.
• Promoting sustainable choices.
• Reducing the consumption of single-use products .
• Educating people on how our regular acts can affect forests worldwide.
• Reducing meat consumption.

In your essay, you can describe each solution in detail or suggest your own ideas for stopping deforestation.

Problem of Deforestation: Essay Prompt

Forests are an essential component of life on Earth. Deforestation disrupts weather patterns, destroys habitats, and severely affects rural communities, resulting in food insecurity and irreversible damage to entire ecosystems.

To answer the question of how deforestation impacts the environment in your essay, use the tips below:

• Find reasons why people need forests. These include obtaining raw materials (palm oil, fuel), manufacturing, and developing infrastructure.
• Research statistics on deforestation.
• Create a list of things deforestation may impact. For example, it can affect climate, soil pollution, weather, people, wildlife, and food security.
• The role of deforestation in fostering global warming.
• Deforestation as a damaging practice for agricultural expansion.
• The effects of deforestation on soil pollution and the water cycle.
• The biggest victims of deforestation — animals and plants.
• Forest fragmentation and its risks for the environment.
• Loss of watershed protection as one of the most significant consequences of deforestation.
• Deforestation as a leading threat to our environment.
• The rapid destruction of forests and its contribution to a decline in biodiversity.
• Forests and the carbon cycle: the risks of deforestation for the climate.
• Higher temperatures as one of the most severe adverse effects of cutting trees.
• The influence of deforestation on increased flooding .
• Deforestation and its role in intensifying climate change at a dramatic rate.
• The loss of half of the world’s topsoil as a consequence of deforestation.
• The issue of deforestation and methods of solving it.
• Loss of habitat for various animals as an adverse effect of deforestation.
• The contribution of forestation to famine .
• The influence of deforestation on oxygen levels in the atmosphere.
• Pandemics as a harmful result of deforestation.
• Deforestation: consequences for the human population.
• Cutting down trees and its contribution to species extinction.
• The effects of deforestation on food security.
• Deforestation and its impact on the migration of birds and animals.
• Loss of medicinal plants as a potential consequence of deforestation.
• Deforestation: the rise of pollution due to the loss of forests.
• The issue of deforestation in countries of Europe.
• Deforestation as a cause of natural disasters around the world.
• The effects of deforestation on soil erosion and ecosystem resilience.
• Forest loss and its role in soil fertility decline.
• The problem of decreased rainfall due to deforestation and its risks.
• The impact of deforestation on animals: starvation and loss of home.

Deforestation Research Questions

• What is the economic aspect of deforestation?
• How does overpopulation affect deforestation?
• What are the consequences of deforestation for global food security ?
• Why is agribusiness one of the leading causes of deforestation?
• How does deforestation affect the structure of the labor market in local communities?
• What are the difficulties in implementing deforestation laws and regulations?
• What impact does political decentralization have on deforestation management?
• How does deforestation affect the value of land and property in impacted areas?
• Why is illegal logging a severe issue for international trade ?
• What ethical issues result from deforestation?
• What is the economic value of biodiversity loss due to deforestation?
• How can sustainable ecotourism mitigate deforestation’s social effects?
• What legal measures should be taken to limit deforestation?
• How is corruption related to the increase in deforestation?
• What are the social impacts of deforestation?
• How do political decisions and policies impact deforestation rates?
• What economic factors contribute to deforestation?
• How does deforestation affect the cultural heritage of local communities?
• What is the role of businesses and multinational firms in deforestation?
• How does deforestation affect the prices of wood and other products?
• How can public opinion influence deforestation policy?
• What role does government regulation have in reducing deforestation?
• How can social movements affect the policy of cutting down forests?
• Why is increased desertification one of the most severe social impacts of deforestation?
• How does the mining industry contribute to deforestation?
• How can economic incentives reduce deforestation?
• How does deforestation lead to social instability and land rights conflicts?
• Why is foreign investment vital in decreasing deforestation?
• How does the representation of deforestation in the media affect public perception?
• How can communities mitigate the effects of deforestation?

Controversial Research Topics on Deforestation

• What is the positive impact of deforestation on agriculture?
• Deforestation as a necessity for the economies and people.
• Palm oil boycott and its value in protecting forests.
• The efficiency of planting more trees in decreasing deforestation.
• Why does deforestation mainly occur in underdeveloped tropical countries?
• Developing alternatives to deforestation to decrease the need for tree clearing.
• The role of national parks and reserves in the protection of forest resources.
• How can using less paper protect forests from being cut down?
• Deforestation as a way to build new roads and residential complexes.
• The importance of international agreements in decreasing deforestation rates.
• How effective is recycling in solving deforestation issues?
• Deforestation: the global threat to the creation of medicines.
• Buying certified wood products as a way to stop deforestation.
• Deforestation and its role in economic growth.
• How can agricultural technology and innovation help to stop deforestation?

Topics on Brazil Deforestation for Research Papers

• The financial losses and social setbacks due to deforestation in Brazil.
• Why does Brazil have the highest deforestation rate in the world?
• Brazilian government reducing Amazon’s deforestation .
• The key causes of deforestation of Amazon rainforests.
• How does the production of soybeans contribute to deforestation in Brazil?
• The environmental impacts of deforestation in the Amazon.
• The removal of Brazil’s forests as a serious global issue.
• The impact of deforestation on climatic patterns in the Amazon.
• Mining as the leading cause of cutting down forests in Brazil.
• How much longer will the Amazon rainforest deforestation last?
• Land use and climate change risks in the Amazon due to deforestation.
• Increasing production and slowing Amazon deforestation: methods and strategies.
• How does deforestation in the Amazon affect the rights of indigenous peoples?
• The international pressure on Brazil due to deforestation.
• How does deforestation in the Amazon rainforest affect global CO2 emissions?
• The role of tropical forests in the global environmental system.
• Burning season in Brazil and its role in the destruction of tropical forests.
• How can Brazil forge its path for developing the Amazon?
• The scientific approach to the deforestation issue in Brazil.
• The impact of deforestation on local climate and biodiversity in the Amazon.
• Why is deforestation of rainforests a global concern in the 21st century?
• The impact of poverty on increasing Amazon deforestation rates.
• The measures that people around the world can take to save tropical forests.
• How effective are judicial measures in curbing illegal logging in the Amazon?
• The long-term effects of deforestation in Brazil on wildlife .
• What sustainable forest management measures can mitigate deforestation in Brazil?
• Amazonian deforestation: causes and possible risks.
• The efficiency of using satellite technology and monitoring systems to track deforestation in Brazil.
• The advantages and disadvantages of UN Environment’s Interfaith Rainforest Initiative.
• The harmful effect of urbanization on Amazon rainforests.
• How do environmental organizations influence deforestation policy in Brazil?

Writing about forest clearance can help you better understand this environmental problem and formulate your attitude toward it. Below, you’ll find topics for your analytical and argumentative essay on deforestation.

Deforestation Argumentative Essay: Topic Ideas

• The responsibility of protecting forests lies only on the government.
• Are trees a limited resource in the modern world?
• Deforestation is vital since it provides people with essential products.
• Educational programs should raise public awareness of deforestation risks.
• National parks and protected areas are crucial for maintaining trees and wildlife.
• Should people be mindful of their consumption habits to stop forest clearance?
• Deforestation makes room for more crops to be grown.
• Sustainable forest management should find a balance between wood extraction and preservation initiatives.
• Logging for valuable timber resources is a significant deforestation driver.
• Should we refuse to buy products made from illegally sourced timber?
• Climate change is partly caused by forest loss.
• Is commercial agriculture a major driver of large-scale deforestation?
• Deforestation is a chance for people to have more job opportunities.
• Indigenous communities play a crucial role in forest preservation.
• Reforestation initiatives should be implemented in the school curriculum.
• Does illegal tree-cutting lead to significant environmental devastation?
• Supporting sustainable products is a vital part of forest protection.
• Indigenous people lose their homes due to deforestation.
• Does deforestation without the consent of local forest communities exacerbate social conflict and violence?
• Deforestation causes sedimentation in rivers and bodies of water.
• Illegal logging involves corruption and may be linked to organized crime networks.
• Voters should support political candidates who prioritize forest conservation.
• Deforestation in the Amazon leads to disruption of ecosystems.
• Minimizing food waste will reduce the need for expanding agricultural land into forests.
• People should minimize paper usage to protect forests around the world.

Deforestation Essay Titles for Analytical Papers

• The rates of Amazon rainforest deforestation due to fire-related causes.
• The analysis of primary forest loss in Ghana.
• How does deforestation affect the economy and social development?
• The trends in agricultural practices and their impact on deforestation.
• The annual tree cover loss in the 2000s in Australia.
• The influence of climate change on deforestation.
• How do deforestation trends differ among continents and regions?
• The factors that contribute to the deforestation of tropical forests.
• The influence of armed conflicts on deforestation.
• The role of corruption in the deforestation process.
• How does urban development affect the need to cut down forests?
• The possible consequences of forest loss for locals in the affected areas.
• The comparison of ecological consequences of various logging methods.
• What modern technologies are used to monitor and prevent deforestation?
• Analysis of the measures and programs for sustainable forest use.
• The leading reasons for forest loss in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• The impact of consumer awareness on demand for deforestation-free products.
• How can scientific research contribute to the preservation of forests?
• The health threats that appear as a result of deforestation.
• The prevalence and shifting patterns of illicit logging that lead to deforestation.
• How do natural disasters influence deforestation rates?
• The advantages and disadvantages of reforestation and afforestation trends.
• The peculiarities of deforestation within protected areas and national parks.
• How can deforestation affect climate phenomena such as droughts and floods?
• The methods and strategies for solving the deforestation issue.

Delivering a speech on deforestation is your chance to raise public awareness of this issue and contribute to a societal shift to more sustainable practices . Below are some ideas for your persuasive and informative speech on deforestation.

Deforestation Persuasive Speech: Topic Ideas

• The forest is the world’s largest organism that needs protection.
• What can help to save the rainforest? Your used cell phone!
• We are losing the lungs of the Earth!
• Do you want to live a long, healthy life? Plant a tree!
• The secret power of reforestation.
• Every person must build a house, raise a child, and plant a forest!
• Amazon rainforests are dying! Take responsibility now, not to regret it later!
• Trees are the key climate regulators in the 21st century!
• Humans, animals, and plants rely on the forests for survival.
• Recycle! Reuse! Restore forests!
• If you have been waiting for a sign to act, now is the best time to stop deforestation!
• Why not protect forests to improve the lives of future generations?
• Rainforests are great medicine sources.
• The solution for addressing deforestation is to put a stop to it.
• You are the one who is responsible for forest loss!
• Stop deforestation, and it, in turn, will stop social conflict and violence.
• Keep calm and save our forests!
• We should grow trees, not pollution.
• Let’s do our best to save the rainforest in Brazil!
• How can one tree be a lifesaver for all human civilization?

Topics about Deforestation for Informative Speeches

• The leading causes and consequences of deforestation in the modern world.
• Agriculture and its contribution to deforestation in Singapore.
• What would the world without trees look like?
• The role of recycling in solving the deforestation problem.
• How does deforestation contribute to climate change?
• The role of forests in maintaining freshwater sources.
• What are the modern methods of combating deforestation in Europe?
• The importance of planting trees and restoring forests to combat deforestation.
• The global scale of the deforestation issue.
• The effects of wildfires in deforested areas.
• What are some forest conservation organizations?
• Top 10 actions you can take to save Amazon rainforests.
• The importance of raising awareness about deforestation.
• Where is deforestation happening around the world?
• Chocolate and biscuits are major contributors to deforestation.
• How does forest loss affect air quality and pollution levels?
• The reasons why we should care about the loss of forests.
• Top 12 things you should know about deforestation.
• The influence of consumer choices on deforestation trends.
• What are the economic and social consequences of deforestation?
• Logging: a benefit to society or a threat to forests?
• Are developed countries obligated to give financial aid to combat deforestation?
• Deforestation: the driver of climate change or profitable job opportunity?
• Is deforestation necessary for economic growth?
• Combating deforestation: stricter regulations or recycling policies?
• Are forest fires inevitable consequences of deforestation?
• Deforestation: banned or legal around the world?
• Is the issue of deforestation sensationalized in the media?
• The greatest threat to forests: agriculture or urbanization?
• The practical strategies of dealing with deforestation: reforestation vs. conservation.
• Is deforestation a displacement of Indigenous rights?
• Should governments implement forest taxation policies?
• Does deforestation in one country impact the global environment?
• Should big corporations implement a zero-deforestation policy in their supply chains?
• Ecotourism: does it promote forest conservation or encourage deforestation?

We have prepared helpful tips on how to write a well-structured essay on deforestation. Some practical examples are also waiting for you below!

Deforestation Essay Introduction

First impressions matter in all aspects of life, including writing. Your introductions serve as a transition point for your readers, taking them from their daily lives into the world of your ideas and insights.

A compelling introduction includes the following components.

Deforestation Thesis Statement

A thesis statement makes an argumentative claim about a topic. It is one of the most challenging essay parts, so let’s look at how to write it in detail. Here are the steps you should take to create a solid thesis statement:

• Choose your essay topic.
• Identify your controlling idea — what aspect of the topic you’ll argue about.
• Determine the purpose of the paper — what stance you’ll defend.
• Write a rough thesis statement.
• Polish your thesis statement if needed.

Deforestation Essay: Body Paragraphs

It is crucial to divide your text into logical paragraphs to help the reader understand the flow of your ideas. An effective body paragraph has 3 main elements.

Conclusion on Deforestation

Writing a conclusion can occasionally be challenging. Nonetheless, it is essential since it can significantly impact how the reader perceives your essay.

Follow the steps below to compose a perfect conclusion.

We hope our catchy essay topics and research titles about deforestation will aid you in achieving academic success! You can also try our online topic generator to get more ideas!

• Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects | Live Science
• Deforestation | National Geographic
• Deforestation | European Commission
• Then and Now: Why Deforestation Is Such a Hot Topic | BBC
• How Does Deforestation Affect Biodiversity? | The Royal Society
• Deforestation | Earth Data
• Why Do Forests Matter? | UN Environment Programme
• Forest Pulse: The Latest on the World’s Forests | World Resources Institute
• Deforestation | My NASA Data

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725 research proposal topics & title ideas in education, psychology, business, & more.

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• How It Works

Global Warming Thesis Statement Topics & Guide On How To Write

Global warming has increased globally over the last six years. With the melting of the ice rocks at the arctic and Antarctic poles, there is a need to worry. The frequent fires at the Amazon forest have also been witnessed in recent years. It is therefore impossible to miss a global warming thesis in light of all these developments.

What Is Global Warming?

It is a phenomenon of climate change characterized by a general increase in the earth’s average temperatures. These developments modify weather balances and ecosystems for a long time. Global warming continues to be the greatest challenge of the 21st century with the industrial and technological innovations taking place.

The impacts of global warming are adverse, and that is why it is a global pandemic.

How To Write a Thesis About Global Warming

A paper on global warming can be said to be one of the cheapest to write. The backing for this statement is the extensive research in this area. However, some students still have difficulties writing a climate change thesis.

So, what is a thesis statement for global warming?

It is found in the introduction section of the essay or research paper. A research paper has three parts:

• Introduction

Therefore, the thesis statement on global warming falls in the first section, and it expresses the main idea of your paper or essay. An impressive thesis statement for global warming has to meet the criteria highlighted below:

• It must be specific
• It should summarize what you intend to cover in your paper
• It should highlight the scope of your study

The global warming thesis statement research paper appears in the last line of your paper’s first paragraph.

What Constitutes A Strong Global Warming Thesis Statement?

When writing a thesis on climate change, interrogate the following questions:

Does it answer the question? – Helps you remain focused on the question Is my position on the topic debatable? – Are there opposing ideas to your thesis statement? Have I specified my stance well enough? – Does it address a specific issue? Does it pass the ‘so what’ question? – Ensure that it clarifies any penitent issue at hand Do I have enough evidence to back up my thesis statement? Does it answer the ‘how and why’ question?

Now that global warming is a large field with subsequent segments, ensure that you plan on what you specifically intend to cover beforehand. Your thesis statement will dictate the paper’s direction; therefore, make it as precise and manageable as possible.

Formula For Writing A Climate Change Thesis Statement

Most students prefer a template to have a good starting point for their thesis statement. Below are is a template you can use when thinking of writing a global warming thesis statement.

• “Global warming is a leading cause of health-related problems.”

From the example above, you can note that we have mentioned the issue at hand (global warming) and the paper’s direction (health effects of global warming). Since global warming affects many spheres of life, it is necessary to narrow down one in your thesis statement.

A climate change thesis will require you to identify a specific area of implication, which you will tackle in the rest of your paper. Narrowing it down will help you major in one area and prevent you from wandering about in your paper.

Expert Tips For A Global Warming Thesis Statement

On top of considering the format of your thesis statement, there are other critical considerations for a thesis statement on global warming:

• Position: It comes at the beginning of your essay paper. Its strategic position is in line with its purpose – to tell the reader what you will discuss.
• Length: Depending on the number of arguments you will cover, a thesis statement can either be long or short. In most cases, a thesis statement is one sentence long that is concise. The number of words is approximately 30 to 40 words long.
• Strength: Have an arguable statement for your thesis on climate change. It should not be apparent, or one that everyone agrees is true.

Below are global warming thesis statement ideas that you can find motivation from for your global warming thesis:

• Global warming is adversely affecting marine life, especially in the polar regions
• An analysis of climate change reveals one challenge facing Mother Nature: Depletion of natural resources
• High temperatures typically characterize global warming
• Global warming should be treated as a global pandemic to increase its awareness globally.
• To eradicate global warming, experts have to adhere to strict scientific ethics and principles.

Identify the purpose of your paper first (to persuade, inform, or argue) and then make it evident in the thesis statement .

Let us explore some global warming topics for the research paper:

Global Warming Research Paper Topics

• The role of UNEP is creating awareness and sensitization towards the adverse effects of global warming
• How industrialization is slowly depleting the ozone layer
• Increase in greenhouse gases: Are human activities the leading cause of the rising temperature levels?
• How exploitation of forests is leading to climate change
• The adverse effects of fossil fuels on climate change: A case study of gas, oil, and burning charcoal

Anti-Global Warming Thesis Topics

• How fungicides and pesticides are affecting the safety and portability of water
• The role of reliable waste management Programmes in reducing garbage levels
• Why the use of explosives in mining should be prohibited: An analysis of cyanide and mercury effects.
• Why stiffer penalties and fines should be imposed on offenders of climate change
• The need to create a multi-agency body specifically for monitoring the global warming situation and providing recommendations

You can consider the topics above to write on or further your research on global warming as a world pandemic.

By the way, we not only provide good topics for your research paper. We provide professional thesis writing help for those seeking a paper from scratch. All you need to do is click the ‘write my thesis’ tab and get your fully furnished paper in no time!

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Deforestation and Forest Loss

Explore long-term changes in deforestation and deforestation rates across the world today., which countries are gaining, and which are losing forests.

Before we look specifically at trends in deforestation across the world, it's useful to understand the net change in forest cover. The net change in forest cover measures any gains in forest cover — either through natural forest expansion or afforestation through tree planting — minus deforestation.

This map shows the net change in forest cover across the world. Countries with a positive change (shown in green) are gaining forests faster than they're losing them. Countries with a negative change (shown in red) are losing more than they're able to restore.

A note on UN FAO forestry data

Data on net forest change, afforestation, and deforestation is sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Forest Resources Assessment . Since year-to-year changes in forest cover can be volatile, the UN FAO provides this annual data averaged over five-year periods.

How much deforestation occurs each year?

Net forest loss is not the same as deforestation — it measures deforestation plus any gains in forest over a given period.

Between 2010 and 2020, the net loss in forests globally was 4.7 million hectares per year. 1 However, deforestation rates were much higher.

The UN FAO estimates that 10 million hectares of forest are cut down each year.

This interactive map shows deforestation rates across the world.

Read more about historical deforestation here:

The world has lost one-third of its forest, but an end of deforestation is possible

Over the last 10,000 years the world has lost one-third of its forests. An area twice the size of the United States. Half occurred in the last century.

Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s. Can we bring it to an end?

Since the end of the last ice age — 10,000 years ago — the world has lost one-third of its forests. 2 Two billion hectares of forest — an area twice the size of the United States — has been cleared to grow crops, raise livestock, and for use as fuelwood.

Previously, we looked at this change in global forests over the long run. What this showed was that although humans have been deforesting the planet for millennia, the rate of forest loss accelerated rapidly in the last few centuries. Half of the global forest loss occurred between 8,000 BCE and 1900; the other half was lost in the last century alone.

To understand this more recent loss of forest, let’s zoom in on the last 300 years. The world lost 1.5 billion hectares of forest over that period. That’s an area 1.5 times the size of the United States.

In the chart, we see the decadal losses and gains in global forest cover. On the horizontal axis, we have time, spanning from 1700 to 2020; on the vertical axis, we have the decadal change in forest cover. The taller the bar, the larger the change in forest area. This is measured in hectares; one hectare is equivalent to 10,000 m².

Forest loss measures the net change in forest cover: the loss in forests due to deforestation plus any increase in forest through afforestation or natural expansion. 3

Unfortunately, there is no single source that provides consistent and transparent data on deforestation rates over this period of time. Methodologies change over time, and estimates — especially in earlier periods — are highly uncertain. This means I’ve had to use two separate datasets to show this change over time. As we’ll see, they produce different estimates of deforestation for an overlapping decade — the 1980s — which suggests that these are not directly comparable. I do not recommend combining them into a single series, but the overall trends are still applicable and tell us an important story about deforestation over the last three centuries.

The first series of data comes from Williams (2006), who estimates deforestation rates from 1700 to 1995. 4 Due to poor data resolution, these are often given as average rates over longer periods — for example, annual average rates are given over the period from 1700 to 1849 and 1920 to 1949. That’s why these rates look strangely consistent over a long period of time.

The second series comes from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It produces a new assessment of global forests every five years. 5

The rate and location of forest loss changed a lot. From 1700 to 1850, 19 million hectares were being cleared every decade. That’s around half the size of Germany.

Most temperate forests across Europe and North America were being lost at this time. Population growth meant that today’s rich countries needed more and more resources such as land for agriculture, wood for energy, and construction. 6

Moving into the 20th century, there was a stepwise change in demand for agricultural land and energy from wood. Deforestation rates accelerated. This increase was mostly driven by tropical deforestation in countries across Asia and Latin America.

Global forest loss appears to have reached its peak in the 1980s. The two sources do not agree on the magnitude of this loss: Williams (2006) estimates a loss of 150 million hectares — an area half the size of India — during that decade.

Interestingly, the UN FAO 1990 report also estimated that deforestation in tropical ‘developing’ countries was 154 million hectares. However, it was estimated that the regrowth of forests offset some of these losses, leading to a net loss of 102 million hectares. 7

The latest UN Forest Resources Assessment estimates that the net loss in forests has declined in the last three decades, from 78 million hectares in the 1990s to 47 million hectares in the 2010s.

This data maps an expected pathway based on what we know from how human-forest interactions evolve.

As we explore in more detail later on , countries tend to follow a predictable development in forest cover, a U-shaped curve. 8 They lose forests as populations grow and demand for agricultural land and fuel increases, but eventually, they reach the so-called ‘forest transition point’ where they begin to regrow more forests than they lose.

That is what has happened in temperate regions: they have gone through a period of high deforestation rates before slowing and reversing this trend.

However, many countries — particularly in the tropics and sub-tropics — are still moving through this transition. Deforestation rates are still very high.

Deforestation rates are still high across the tropics

Large areas of forest are still being lost in the tropics today. This is particularly tragic because these are regions with the highest levels of biodiversity.

Let’s look at estimates of deforestation from the latest UN Forest report. This shows us raw deforestation rates without any adjustment for the regrowth or plantation of forests, which is arguably not as good for ecosystems or carbon storage.

This is shown in the chart below.

We can see that the UN does estimate that deforestation rates have fallen since the 1990s. However, there was very little progress from the 1990s to the 2000s and an estimated 26% drop in rates in the 2010s. In 2022, the FAO published a separate assessment based on remote sensing methods; it did not report data for the 1990s, but it also estimated a 29% reduction in deforestation rates from the early 2000s to the 2010s.

This is progress, but it needs to happen much faster. The world is still losing large amounts of primary forests every year. To put these numbers in context, during the 1990s and first decade of the 2000s, an area almost the size of India was deforested. 9 Even with the ‘improved’ rates in the 2010s, this still amounted to an area around twice the size of Spain. 10

The regrowth of forests is a positive development. In the chart below, we see how this affects the net change in global forests. Forest recovery and plantation ‘offsets’ a lot of deforestation such that the net losses are around half the rates of deforestation alone.

But we should be cautious here: it’s often not the case that the ‘positives’ of regrowing on planting one hectare of forest offset the ‘losses’ of one hectare of deforestation. Cutting down one hectare of rich tropical rainforest cannot be completely offset by the creation of on hectare of plantation forest in a temperate country.

Forest expansion is positive but does not negate the need to end deforestation.

The history of deforestation is a tragic one, in which we have lost not only wild and beautiful landscapes but also the wildlife within them. But, the fact that forest transitions are possible should give us confidence that a positive future is possible. Many countries have not only ended deforestation but have actually achieved substantial reforestation. It will be possible for our generation to achieve the same on a global scale and bring the 10,000-year history of forest loss to an end.

If we want to end deforestation, we need to understand where and why it’s happening, where countries are within their transition, and what can be done to accelerate their progress through it. We need to pass the transition point as soon as possible while minimizing the amount of forest we lose along the way.

In this article , I look at what drives deforestation, which helps us understand what we need to do to solve it.

Forest definitions and comparisons to other datasets

There is no universal definition of what a ‘forest’ is. That means there are a range of estimates of forest area and how this has changed over time.

In this article, in the recent period, I have used data from the UN’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (2020). The UN carries out these global forest stocktakes every five years. These forest figures are widely used in research, policy, and international targets, such as the Sustainable Development Goals .

The UN FAO has a very specific definition of a forest. It’s “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 0.5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ.”

In other words, it has criteria for the area that must be covered (0.5 hectares), the minimum height of trees (0.5 meters), and a density of at least 10%.

Compare this to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which uses forest estimates to calculate land use carbon emissions, and its REDD+ Programme, where low-to-middle-income countries can receive finance for verified projects that prevent or reduce deforestation. It defines a forest as having a density of more than 10%, a minimum tree height of 2-5 meters, and a smaller area of at least 0.05 hectares.

It’s not just forest definitions that vary between sources. What is measured (and not measured) differs, too. Global Forest Watch is an interactive online dashboard that tracks ‘tree loss’ and ‘forest loss’ across the world. It measures this in real time and can provide better estimates of year-to-year variations in rates of tree loss.

However, the UN FAO and Global Forest Watch do not measure the same thing.

The UN FAO measures deforestation based on how land is used. It measures the permanent conversion of forested land to another use, such as pasture, croplands, or urbanization. Temporary changes in forest cover, such as losses through wildfire or small-scale shifting agriculture, are not included in deforestation figures because it is assumed that they will regrow. If the use of land has not changed, it is not considered deforestation.

Global Forest Watch (GFW) measures temporary changes in forests. It can detect changes in land cover but does not differentiate the underlying land use. All deforestation would be considered tree loss, but a lot of tree loss would not be considered as deforestation.

As GFW defines ‘forest loss’, “Loss” indicates the removal or mortality of tree cover and can be due to a variety of factors, including mechanical harvesting, fire, disease, or storm damage. As such, “loss” does not equate to deforestation.”

Therefore, we cannot directly compare these sources. This article from Global Forest Watch gives a good overview of the differences between the UN FAO's and GFW's methods.

Since GFW uses satellite imagery, its methods continually improve. This makes its ability to detect changes in forest cover even stronger. But it also means that comparisons over time are more difficult. It currently warns against comparing pre-2015 and post-2015 data since there was a significant methodological change at that time. Note that this is also a problem in UN FAO reports, as I’ll soon explain.

What data from GFW makes clear is that forest loss across the tropics is still very high, and in the last few years, little progress has been made. Since UN FAO reports are only published in 5-year intervals, they miss these shorter-term fluctuations in forest loss. The GFW’s shorter-interval stocktakes of how countries are doing will become increasingly valuable.

One final point to note is that UN FAO estimates have also changed over time, with improved methods and better access to data.

I looked at how net forest losses in the 1990s were reported across five UN reports: 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020.

Estimated losses changed in each successive report:

• 2000 report : Net losses of 92 million hectares
• 2005 report : 89 million hectares
• 2010 report : 83 million hectares
• 2015 report : 72 million hectares
• 2020 report : 78 million hectares

This should not affect the overall trends reported in the latest report: the UN FAO should — as far as is possible — apply the same methodology to its 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s estimates. However, it does mean we should be cautious about comparing absolute magnitudes across different reports.

This is one challenge in presenting 1980 figures in the main visualization in this article. Later reports have not updated 1980 figures, so we have to rely on estimates from earlier reports. We don’t know whether 1980s losses would also be lower with the UN FAO’s most recent adjustments. If so, this would mean the reductions in net forest loss from the 1980s to 1990s were lower than is shown from available data.

Forest transitions: why do we lose then regain forests?

Globally, we deforest around ten million hectares of forest every year. 11 That’s an area the size of Portugal every year. Around half of this deforestation is offset by regrowing forests, so overall, we lose around five million hectares each year.

Nearly all — 95% — of this deforestation occurs in the tropics . But not all of it is to produce products for local markets. 14% of deforestation is driven by consumers in the world’s richest countries — we import beef, vegetable oils, cocoa, coffee, and paper that has been produced on deforested land. 12

The scale of deforestation today might give us little hope for protecting our diverse forests. But by studying how forests have changed over time, there’s good reason to think that a way forward is possible.

Many countries have lost and then regained forests over millennia.

Time and time again, we see examples of countries that have lost massive amounts of forests before reaching a turning point where deforestation not only slows but forests return. In the chart, we see historical reconstructions of country-level data on the share of land covered by forest (over decades, centuries, or even millennia, depending on the country). I have reconstructed long-term data using various studies, which I’ve documented here .

Many countries have much less forest today than they did in the past. Nearly half (47%) of France was forested 1000 years ago; today that’s just under one-third (31.4%). The same is true of the United States; back in 1630, 46% of the area of today’s USA was covered by forest. Today, that’s just 34%.

One thousand years ago, 20% of Scotland’s land was covered by forest. By the mid-18th century, only 4% of the country was forested. But then the trend turned, and it moved from deforestation to reforestation. For the last two centuries, forests have been growing and are almost back to where they were 1000 years ago. 13

Forest Transitions: the U-shaped curve of forest change

What’s surprising is how consistent the pattern of change is across so many countries; as we’ve seen, they all seem to follow a ‘U-shaped curve.’ They first lose lots of forest but reach a turning point and begin to regain it again.

We can illustrate this through the so-called ‘Forest Transition Model.’ 14 This is shown in the chart. It breaks the change in forests into four stages, explained by two variables: the amount of forest cover a region has and the annual change in cover (how quickly it is losing or gaining forest). 15

Stage 1 – The Pre-Transition phase is defined as having high levels of forest cover and no or only very slow losses over time. Countries may lose some forest each year, but this is at a very slow rate. Mather refers to an annual loss of less than 0.25% as a small loss.

Stage 2 – The Early Transition phase is when countries start to lose forests very rapidly. Forest cover falls quickly, and the annual loss of forest is high.

Stage 3 – The Late Transition phase is when deforestation rates start to slow down again. At this stage, countries are still losing forest each year, but at a lower rate than before. At the end of this stage, countries are approaching the ‘transition point.’

Stage 4 – The Post-Transition phase is when countries have passed the ‘transition point’ and are now gaining forest again. At the beginning of this phase, the forest area is at its lowest point. But forest cover increases through reforestation. The annual change is now positive.

Why do countries lose and then regain forests?

Many countries have followed this classic U-shaped pattern. What explains this?

There are two reasons that we cut down forests:

• Forest resources: we want the resources that they provide — the wood for fuel, building materials, or paper;
• Land: We want to use the land they occupy for something else, such as farmland to grow crops, pasture to raise livestock or land to build roads and cities.

Our demand for both of these initially increases as populations grow and poor people get richer . We need more fuelwood to cook, more houses to live in, and, importantly, more food to eat.

But, as countries continue to get richer, this demand slows. The rate of population growth tends to slow down. Instead of using wood for fuel, we switch to fossil fuels , or hopefully, more renewables and nuclear energy . Our crop yields improve, so we need less land for agriculture.

This demand for resources and land is not always driven by domestic markets. As I mentioned earlier, 14% of deforestation today is driven by consumers in rich countries.

The Forest Transition, therefore, tends to follow a ‘development’ pathway. 16 As a country achieves economic growth, it moves through each of the four stages. This explains the historical trends we see in countries across the world today. Rich countries — such as the USA, France, and the United Kingdom — have had a long history of deforestation but have now passed the transition point. Most deforestation today occurs in low-to-middle-income countries.

Where are countries in the transition today?

If we look at where countries are in their transition today, we can understand where we expect to lose and gain forest in the coming decades. Most of our future deforestation is going to come from countries in the pre-or early-transition phase.

Several studies have assessed the stage of countries across the world. 17 The most recent analysis to date was published by Florence Pendrill and colleagues (2019), which looked at each country’s stage in the transition, the drivers of deforestation, and the role of international trade. 18 To do this, they used the standard metrics discussed in our theory of forest transitions earlier: the share of land that is forested and the annual change in forest cover.

In the map, we see their assessment of each country’s stage in the transition. Most of today’s richest countries — all of Europe, North America, Japan, and South Korea — have passed the turning point and are now regaining forests. This is also true for major economies such as China and India. The fact that these countries have recently regained forests is also visible in the long-term forest trends above.

Across tropical and sub-tropical countries, we have a mix: many upper-middle-income countries are now in the late transition phase. Brazil, for example, went through a period of very rapid deforestation in the 1980s and 90s (its ‘early transition’ phase), but its losses have slowed, meaning it is now in the late transition. Countries such as Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are in the early transition phase and are losing forests quickly. Some of the world’s poorest countries are still in the pre-transition phase. In the coming decades, we might expect to see the most rapid loss of forests unless these countries take action to prevent it and the world supports them in their goal.

Not all forest loss is equal: what is the difference between deforestation and forest degradation?

Fifteen billion trees are cut down every year. 19 The Global Forest Watch project — using satellite imagery — estimates that global tree loss in 2019 was 24 million hectares. That’s an area the size of the United Kingdom.

These are big numbers and important ones to track: forest loss creates a number of negative impacts, ranging from carbon emissions to species extinctions and biodiversity loss. But distilling changes to this single metric — tree or forest loss — comes with its own issues.

The problem is that it treats all forest loss as equal. It assumes the impact of clearing primary rainforest in the Amazon to produce soybeans is the same as logging plantation forests in the UK. The latter will experience short-term environmental impacts but will ultimately regrow. When we cut down primary rainforest, we transform this ecosystem forever.

When we treat these impacts equally, we make it difficult to prioritize our efforts in the fight against deforestation. Decision makers could give as much of our attention to European logging as to the destruction of the Amazon. As we will see later, this would be a distraction from our primary concern: ending tropical deforestation. The other issue that arises is that ‘tree loss’ or ‘forest loss’ data collected by satellite imagery often doesn’t match the official statistics reported by governments in their land use inventories. This is because the latter only captures deforestation — the replacement of forest with another land use (such as cropland). It doesn’t capture trees that are cut down in planted forests; the land is still forested; it’s now just regrowing forests.

In the article, we will look at the reasons we lose forests, how these can be differentiated in a useful way, and what this means for understanding our priorities in tackling forest loss.

Understanding and seeing the drivers of forest loss

‘Forest loss’ or ‘tree loss’ captures two fundamental impacts on forest cover: deforestation and forest degradation .

Deforestation is the complete removal of trees for the conversion of forest to another land use such as agriculture, mining, or towns and cities. It results in a permanent conversion of forest into an alternative land use. The trees are not expected to regrow . Forest degradation measures a thinning of the canopy — a reduction in the density of trees in the area — but without a change in land use. The changes to the forest are often temporary, and it’s expected that they will regrow.

From this understanding, we can define five reasons why we lose forests:

• Commodity-driven deforestation is the long-term, permanent conversion of forests to other land uses such as agriculture (including oil palm and cattle ranching), mining, or energy infrastructure.
• Urbanization is the long-term, permanent conversion of forests to towns, cities, and urban infrastructure such as roads.
• Shifting agriculture is the small- to medium-scale conversion of forest for farming, which is later abandoned so that forests regrow. This is common in local subsistence farming systems where populations will clear forest, use it to grow crops, and then move on to another plot of land.
• Forestry production is the logging of managed, planted forests for products such as timber, paper, and pulp. These forests are logged periodically and allowed to regrow.
• Wildfires destroy forests temporarily. When the land is not converted to a new use, forests can regrow in the following years.

Thanks to satellite imagery, we can get a birds-eye view of what these drivers look like from above. In the figure, we see visual examples from the study of forest loss classification by Philip Curtis et al. (2018), published in Science . 20

Commodity-driven deforestation and urbanization are deforestation : the forested land is completely cleared and converted into another land use — a farm, mining site, or city. The change is permanent. There is little forest left. Forestry production and wildfires usually result in forest degradation — the forest experiences short-term disturbance but, if left alone, is likely to regrow. The change is temporary. This is nearly always true of planted forests in temperate regions — there, planted forests are long-established and do not replace primary existing forests. In the tropics, some forestry production can be classified as deforestation when primary rainforests are cut down to make room for managed tree plantations. 18

'Shifting agriculture’ is usually classified as degradation because the land is often abandoned, and the forests regrow naturally. But it can bridge between deforestation and degradation depending on the timeframe and permanence of these agricultural practices.

One-quarter of forest loss comes from tropical deforestation

We’ve seen the five key drivers of forest loss. Let’s put some numbers on them.

In their analysis of global forest loss, Philip Curtis and colleagues used satellite images to assess where and why the world lost forests between 2001 and 2015. The breakdown of forest loss globally and by region is shown in the chart. 20

Just over one-quarter of global forest loss is driven by deforestation. The remaining 73% came from the three drivers of forest degradation: logging of forestry products from plantations (26%), shifting, local agriculture (24%), and wildfires (23%).

We see massive differences in how important each driver is across the world. 95% of the world’s deforestation occurs in the tropics [we look at this breakdown again later]. In Latin America and Southeast Asia, in particular, commodity-driven deforestation — mainly the clearance of forests to grow crops such as palm oil and soy and pasture for beef production — accounts for almost two-thirds of forest loss.

In contrast, most forest degradation — two-thirds of it — occurs in temperate countries. Centuries ago, it was mainly temperate regions that were driving global deforestation [we take a look at this longer history of deforestation in a related article ] . They cut down their forests and replaced them with agricultural land long ago. But this is no longer the case: forest loss across North America and Europe is now the result of harvesting forestry products from tree plantations or tree loss in wildfires.

Africa is also different here. Forests are mainly cut and burned to make space for local subsistence agriculture or fuelwood for energy. This ‘shifting agriculture’ category can be difficult to allocate between deforestation and degradation: it often requires close monitoring over time to understand how permanent these agricultural practices are.

Africa is also an outlier as a result of how many people still rely on wood as their primary energy source. Noriko Hosonuma et al. (2010) looked at the primary drivers of deforestation and degradation across tropical and subtropical countries specifically. 21  The breakdown of forest degradation drivers is shown in the following chart. Note that in this study, the category of subsistence agriculture was classified as a deforestation driver, so it is not included. In Latin America and Asia, the dominant driver of degradation was logging for products such as timber, paper, and pulp — this accounted for more than 70%. Across Africa, fuelwood and charcoal played a much larger role — it accounted for more than half (52%).

This highlights an important point: around one in five people in sub-Saharan Africa have access to clean fuels for cooking, meaning they still rely on wood and charcoal. With increasing development, urbanization, and access to other energy resources, Africa will shift from local subsistence activities into commercial commodity production — both in agricultural products and timber extraction. This follows the classic ‘forest transition’ model with development, which we look at in more detail in a related article .

Tropical deforestation should be our primary concern

The world loses almost six million hectares of forest each year to deforestation. That’s like losing an area the size of Portugal every two years. 95% of this occurs in the tropics. The breakdown of deforestation by region is shown in the chart. 59% occurs in Latin America, with a further 28% from Southeast Asia. In a related article , we look in much more detail at which agricultural products and which countries are driving this.

As we saw previously, this deforestation accounts for around one-quarter of global forest loss. 27% of forest loss results from ‘commodity-driven deforestation’ — cutting down forests to grow crops such as soy, palm oil, and cocoa, raising livestock on pasture, and mining operations. Urbanization, the other driver of deforestation, accounts for just 0.6%. It’s the foods and products we buy, not where we live, that have the biggest impact on global land use.

It might seem odd to argue that we should focus our efforts on tackling this quarter of forest loss (rather than the other 73%). But there is good reason to make this our primary concern.

Philipp Curtis and colleagues make this point clear. On their Global Forest Watch platform, they were already presenting maps of forest loss across the world. However, they wanted to contribute to a more informed discussion about where to focus forest conservation efforts by understanding why forests were being lost. To quote them, they wanted to prevent “a common misperception that any tree cover loss shown on the map represents deforestation.” And to “identify where deforestation is occurring; perhaps as important, show where forest loss is not deforestation.”

Why should we care most about tropical deforestation? There is a geographical argument (why the tropics?) and an argument for why deforestation is worse than degradation.

Tropical forests are home to some of the richest and most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Over half of the world’s species reside in tropical forests. 22 Endemic species are those which only naturally occur in a single country. Whether we look at the distribution of endemic mammal species , bird species , or amphibian species , the map is the same: tropical and subtropical countries are packed with unique wildlife. Habitat loss is the leading driver of global biodiversity loss. 23 When we cut down rainforests, we are destroying the habitats of many unique species and reshaping these ecosystems permanently. Tropical forests are also large carbon sinks and can store a lot of carbon per unit area. 24

Deforestation also results in larger losses of biodiversity and carbon relative to degradation. Degradation drivers, including logging and especially wildfires, can definitely have major impacts on forest health: animal populations decline, trees can die, and CO 2 is emitted. However, the magnitude of these impacts is often less than the complete conversion of forests. They are smaller and more temporary. When deforestation happens, almost all of the carbon stored in the trees and vegetation — called the ‘aboveground carbon loss’ —  is lost. Estimates vary, but on average, only 10-20% of carbon is lost during logging and 10-30% from fires. 25 In a study of logging practices in the Amazon and Congo, forests retained 76% of their carbon stocks shortly after logging. 26 Logged forests recover their carbon over time, as long as the land is not converted to other uses (which is what happens in the case of deforestation).

Deforestation tends to occur in forests that have been around for centuries if not millennia. Cutting them down disrupts or destroys established, species-rich ecosystems. The biodiversity of managed tree plantations, which are periodically cut, regrown, cut again, and then regrown, is not the same.

That is why we should be focusing on tropical deforestation. Since agriculture is responsible for 60 to 80% of it, what we eat, where it’s sourced from, and how it is produced are our strongest levers to bring deforestation to an end.

Carbon emissions from deforestation: are they driven by domestic demand or international trade?

95% of global deforestation occurs in the tropics. Brazil and Indonesia alone account for almost half. After long periods of forest clearance in the past, most of today’s richest countries are increasing tree cover through afforestation.

This might put the responsibility for ending deforestation solely on tropical countries. But, supply chains are international. What if this deforestation is being driven by consumers elsewhere?

Many consumers are concerned that their food choices are linked to deforestation in some of these hotspots. Since three-quarters of tropical deforestation is driven by agriculture, that’s a valid concern. It feeds into the popular idea that ‘eating local’ is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint. In a previous article , I showed that the types of food you eat matter much more for your carbon footprint than where it comes from — this is because transport usually makes up a small percentage of your food’s emissions, even if it comes from the other side of the world. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, reducing meat and dairy intake — particularly beef and lamb — has the largest impact.

But understanding the role of deforestation in the products we buy is important. If we can identify the producing and importing countries and the specific products responsible, we can direct our efforts towards interventions that will really make a difference.

Read more about the imported deforestation here:

Do rich countries import deforestation from overseas?

Rich countries import foods produced on deforested land in the tropics. How much deforestation do they import?

One-third of CO 2 emissions from deforestation are embedded in international trade

In a study published in Global Environmental Change , Florence Pendrill and colleagues investigated where tropical deforestation was occurring and what products were driving this. Using global trade models, they traced where these products were going in international supply chains. 27

They found that tropical deforestation — given as the annual average between 2010 and 2014 — was responsible for 2.6 billion tonnes of CO 2 per year. That was 6.5% of global CO 2 emissions. 28

International trade was responsible for around one-third (29%) of these emissions. This is probably less than many people would expect. Most emissions — 71% — came from foods consumed in the country where they were produced. It’s domestic demand, not international trade, that is the main driver of deforestation.

In the chart, we see how emissions from tropical deforestation are distributed through international supply chains. On the left-hand side, we have the countries (grouped by region) where deforestation occurs, and on the right, we have the countries and regions where these products are consumed. The paths between these end boxes indicate where emissions are being traded — the wider the bar, the more emissions are embedded in these products.

Latin America exports around 23% of its emissions; that means more than three-quarters are generated for products that are consumed within domestic markets. The Asia-Pacific region — predominantly Indonesia and Malaysia — exports a higher share: 44%. As we will see later, this is dominated by palm oil exports to Europe, China, India, North America, and the Middle East. Deforestation in Africa is mainly driven by local populations and markets; only 9% of its emissions are exported.

Since international demand is driving one-third of deforestation emissions, we have some opportunity to reduce emissions through global consumers and supply chains. However, most emissions are driven by domestic markets, which means that policies in major producer countries will be key to tackling this problem.

How much deforestation emissions is each country responsible for?

Let’s now focus on the consumers of products driving deforestation. After we adjust for imports and exports, how much CO 2 from deforestation is each country responsible for?

Rather than looking at total figures by country (if you’re interested, we have mapped them here ), we have calculated the per capita footprint. This gives us an indication of the impact of the average person’s diet. Note that this only measures the emissions from tropical deforestation — it doesn’t include any other emissions from agricultural production, such as methane from livestock or rice or the use of fertilizers.

In the chart, we see deforestation emissions per person, measured in tonnes of CO 2 per year. For example, the average German generated half a tonne (510 kilograms) of CO 2 per person from domestic and imported foods.

At the top of the list, we see Brazil and Indonesia, which are some of the major producer countries. The fact that the per capita emissions after trade are very high means that a lot of their food products are consumed by people in Brazil and Indonesia. The diet of the average Brazilian creates 2.7 tonnes of CO 2 from deforestation alone. That’s more than the country’s CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels , which are around 2.2 tonnes per person.

But we also see that some countries which import a lot of food have high emissions. Luxembourg has the largest footprint at nearly three tonnes per person. Imported emissions are also high for Taiwan, Belgium, and the Netherlands at around one tonne.

The average across the EU was 0.3 tonnes of CO 2 per person. To put this in perspective, that would be around one-sixth of the total carbon footprint of the average EU diet. 29

Beef, soybeans, and palm oil are the key drivers of deforestation

We know where deforestation emissions are occurring and where this demand is coming from. But we also need to know what products are driving this. This helps consumers understand what products they should be concerned about and allows us to target specific supply chains.

As we covered in a previous article , 60% of tropical deforestation is driven by beef, soybean, and palm oil production. We should look not only at where these foods are produced but also at where the consumer demand is coming from.

In the chart here, we see the breakdown of deforestation emissions by product for each consumer country. The default is shown for Brazil, but you can explore the data for a range of countries using the “Change country” button.

We see very clearly that the large Brazilian footprint is driven by its domestic demand for beef. In China, the biggest driver is demand for ‘oilseeds’ — which is the combination of soy imported from Latin America and palm oil imported from Indonesia and Malaysia.

Across the US and Europe, the breakdown of products is more varied. But, overall, oilseeds and beef tend to top the list for most countries.

Bringing all of these elements together, we can focus on a few points that should help us prioritize our efforts to end deforestation. Firstly, international trade does play a role in deforestation — it’s responsible for almost one-third of emissions. By combining our earlier Sankey diagram and breakdown of emissions by-product, we can see that we can tackle a large share of these emissions through only a few key trade flows. Most traded emissions are embedded in soy and palm oil exports to China and India, as well as beef, soy, and palm oil exports to Europe. The story of both soy and palm oil is complex — and it’s not obvious that eliminating these products will fix the problem. Therefore, we look at them both individually in more detail to better understand what we can do about it.

However, international markets alone cannot fix this problem. Most tropical deforestation is driven by the demand for products in domestic markets. Brazil’s emissions are high because Brazilians eat a lot of beef. Africa’s emissions are high because people are clearing forests to produce more food. This means interventions at the national level will be key: this can include a range of solutions, including policies such as Brazil’s soy moratorium, the REDD+ Programme to compensate for the opportunity costs of preserving these forests, and improvements in agricultural productivity so countries can continue to produce more food on less land.

FAO. 2020. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 – Key findings. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca8753en

Estimates vary, but most date the end of the last ice age to around 11,700 years ago.

Kump, L. R., Kasting, J. F., & Crane, R. G. (2004). The Earth System (Vol. 432). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Year-to-year data on forest change comes with several issues: either data at this resolution is not available, or year-to-year changes can be highly variable. For this reason, data sources — including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization — tend to aggregate annual losses as the average over five-year or decadal periods.

Williams, M. (2003). Deforesting the earth: from prehistory to global crisis. University of Chicago Press.

The data for 1990 to 2020 is from the latest assessment: the UN’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020.

FAO (2020). Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020: Main report. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9825en .

Mather, A. S., Fairbairn, J., & Needle, C. L. (1999). The course and drivers of the forest transition: the case of France. Journal of Rural Studies, 15(1), 65-90.

Mather, A. S., & Needle, C. L. (2000). The relationships of population and forest trends. Geographical Journal, 166(1), 2-13.

It estimated that the net change in forests without plantations was 121 million hectares. With plantations included — as is standard for the UN’s forest assessments — this was 102 million hectares.

Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., … & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries. Environmental Research Letters, 7(4), 044009.

The area of India is around 330 million hectares. The combined losses in the 1990s and 2000s were 309 million hectares. Just 6% less than the size of India.

The area of Spain is around 51 million hectares. Double this area is around 102 million hectares — a little under 110 million hectares.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Forest Resources Assessment estimates global deforestation, averaged over the five-year period from 2015 to 2020, was 10 million hectares per year.

If we sum countries’ imported deforestation by World Bank income group , we find that high-income countries were responsible for 14% of imported deforestation; upper-middle-income for 52%; lower-middle income for 23%; and low income for 11%.

Mather, A. S. (2004). Forest transition theory and the reforesting of Scotland . Scottish Geographical Journal, 120(1-2), 83-98.

England is similar: in the late 11th century, 15% of the country was forested, and over the following centuries, two-thirds were cut down. By the 19th century, the forest area had been reduced to a third of what it once was. But it was then that England reached its transition point, and since then, forests have doubled in size.

National Inventory of Woodland and Trees, England (2001). Forestry Commission. Available here .

This was first coined by Alexander Mather in the 1990s. Mather, A. S. (1990). Global forest resources . Belhaven Press.

This diagram is adapted from the work of Hosonuma et al. (2012).

Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., ... & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries . Environmental Research Letters , 7 (4), 044009.

Rudel, T. K. (1998). Is there a forest transition? Deforestation, reforestation, and development . Rural Sociology , 63 (4), 533-552.

Rudel, T. K., Coomes, O. T., Moran, E., Achard, F., Angelsen, A., Xu, J., & Lambin, E. (2005). Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change . Global Environmental Change , 15 (1), 23-31.

Cuaresma, J. C., Danylo, O., Fritz, S., McCallum, I., Obersteiner, M., See, L., & Walsh, B. (2017). Economic development and forest cover: evidence from satellite data . Scientific Reports , 7 , 40678.

Noriko Hosonuma et al. (2012) looked at this distribution for low-to-middle-income subtropical countries and also studied the many drivers of forest loss.Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., ... & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries . Environmental Research Letters , 7 (4), 044009.

Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., & Kastner, T. (2019). Deforestation displaced: trade in forest-risk commodities and the prospects for a global forest transition . Environmental Research Letters , 14 (5), 055003.

Crowther, T. W., Glick, H. B., Covey, K. R., Bettigole, C., Maynard, D. S., Thomas, S. M., ... & Tuanmu, M. N. (2015). Mapping tree density at a global scale . Nature , 525 (7568), 201-205.

Curtis, P. G., Slay, C. M., Harris, N. L., Tyukavina, A., & Hansen, M. C. (2018). Classifying drivers of global forest loss . Science , 361 (6407), 1108-1111.

Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., ... & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries . Environmental Research Letters , 7(4), 044009.

Hosonuma et al. (2012) gathered this data from a range of sources, including country submissions as part of their REDD+ readiness activities, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) country profiles, UNFCCC national communications, and scientific studies.

Scheffers, B. R., Joppa, L. N., Pimm, S. L., & Laurance, W. F. (2012). What we know and don’t know about Earth's missing biodiversity . Trends in Ecology & Evolution , 27(9), 501-510.

Maxwell, S. L., Fuller, R. A., Brooks, T. M., & Watson, J. E. (2016). Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets, and bulldozers . Nature, 536(7615), 143.

Lewis, S. L. (2006). Tropical forests and the changing earth system . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 361(1465), 195-210.

Tyukavina, A., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P. V., Stehman, S. V., Smith-Rodriguez, K., Okpa, C., & Aguilar, R. (2017). Types and rates of forest disturbance in Brazilian Legal Amazon, 2000–2013 . Science Advances , 3 (4), e1601047.

Lewis, S. L., Edwards, D. P., & Galbraith, D. (2015). Increasing human dominance of tropical forests . Science , 349 (6250), 827-832.

To do this, they quantified where deforestation was occurring due to the expansion of croplands, pasture, and tree plantations (for logging) and what commodities were produced on this converted land. Then, using a physical trade model across 191 countries and around 400 food and forestry products, they could trace them through to where they are physically consumed, either as food or in industrial processes.

Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., Kastner, T., Moran, D., Schmidt, S., & Wood, R. (2019). Agricultural and forestry trade drives a large share of tropical deforestation emissions . Global Environmental Change , 56 , 1-10.

In 2012 — the mid-year of this period — global emissions from fossil fuels, industry, and land use change was 40.2 billion tonnes. Deforestation was therefore responsible for [2.6 / 40.2 * 100 = 6.5%].

The carbon footprint of diets across the EU varies from country to country, and estimates vary depending on how much land use change is factored into these figures. Notarnicola et al. (2017) estimate that the average EU diet, excluding deforestation, is responsible for 0.5 tonnes of CO 2 per person. If we add 0.3 tonnes to this figure, deforestation would account for around one-sixth [0.3 / (1.5+0.3) * 100 = 17%].

Notarnicola, B., Tassielli, G., Renzulli, P. A., Castellani, V., & Sala, S. (2017). Environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe . Journal of Cleaner Production , 140 , 753-765.

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Tackling deforestation – 4 reasons companies should take a 'landscape' approach

The effectiveness of the landscape and jurisdictional approach to deforestation lies in collaboration. Image:  Unsplash/Renaldo Matamoro

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Jack Hurd

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved .chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

• Traditional methods have failed to curb deforestation significantly but the landscape and jurisdictional approach could achieve sustainable land use and halt deforestation at the necessary speed and scale.
• The effectiveness of the landscape and jurisdictional approach lies in collaboration; companies must work with local governments, smallholders and Indigenous people to ensure sustainable commodity production and tackle systemic issues.
• Adopting the landscape and jurisdictional approach helps companies comply with emerging regulations, meet voluntary commitments and secure a sustainable supply chain.

Many living in cities and countries already stripped of native woodland may have become desensitized to headlines such as ‘Football pitch’ of Amazon forest lost every minute . But here’s a shocking statistic: what we ate and consumed – including beef, palm oil, soy, cocoa, coffee, rubber and wood fibre – led to the loss of 71.9 million hectares of forest between 2001 and 2015, an area twice the size of Germany.

Since then, the rate of deforestation has barely slowed. Last year, 3.7 million hectares of tropical primary rainforest were lost, leading to 2.4 billion tonnes of emissions. Then, consider the production pressure on forest land, given that global food demand is projected to increase by 30-62% by 2050 . The sheer scale of forest loss demands a response at a similar scale. What can companies do to help reverse this terrible trend?

Have you read?

What does the new european deforestation law mean for colombian specialty cocoa, world off track to end deforestation by 2030, report finds, the tropical forest alliance is reducing deforestation, put pledges into practice – climate, nature and livelihoods depend on it.

The road to deforestation is paved with good intentions. In 2014, the New York Declaration on Forests pledged to halve deforestation rates by 2020, but it’s had to recalibrate. At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, 141 countries agreed to “halt and reverse forest loss by 2030.” Meanwhile, a private sector group of more than 30 financial institutions with over $8.7 trillion in assets under management committed to eliminating deforestation from portfolios by 2025.

Yet, according to the latest Forest 500 report , “despite some pockets of progress, voluntary private sector action has failed to generate meaningful progress on commodity-driven deforestation.”

The risks of failure are hard to overestimate. Without reversing forest loss, we will fail to hit the Paris targets; there is a growing understanding that there is no net zero without nature .

And forests do a lot more than sequester carbon. They harbour over half the world’s terrestrial biodiversity , recharge groundwater, filter air, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers. At the same time, 1.5 billion people depend on forests for food, water and fuel. Climate, nature, livelihoods and rights are all at stake.

Sustainable supply chains are a priority for companies whose bottom lines depend on a steady stream of agricultural commodities. Meanwhile, as the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) comes into force, failure to comply with the ever-tightening regulation risks litigation or fines (4% of turnover in the case of the EUDR). When companies miss voluntary targets, boards will fret about damage to reputations and investor confidence.

Halting deforestation is essential to avoiding the worst effects of global climate change.

The destruction of forests creates almost as much greenhouse gas emissions as global road travel, and yet it continues at an alarming rate.

In 2012, we brought together more than 150 partners working in Latin America, West Africa, Central Africa and South-East Asia – to establish the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 : a global public-private partnership to facilitate investment in systemic change.

The Alliance, made up of businesses, governments, civil society, indigenous people, communities and international organizations, helps producers, traders and buyers of commodities often blamed for causing deforestation to achieve deforestation-free supply chains.

The Commodities and Forests Agenda 2020 , summarizes the areas in which the most urgent action is needed to eliminate deforestation from global agricultural supply chains.

The Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 i s gaining ground on tackling deforestation linked to the production of four commodities: palm oil, beef, soy, and pulp and paper.

Get in touch to join our mission to halt to deforestation.

Landscape approach – a new paradigm

With barely a handful of years left before the reckoning against 2030’s deforestation targets begins, a new approach is urgently needed. An in-depth report published by the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) explains how companies, countries and communities can work together to halt deforestation and conversion at the required speed and scale.

The report highlights a new paradigm to achieve sustainable land use, known by a name as complicated as the challenge itself: the “landscape and jurisdictional approach.”

The landscape part of the approach shifts the focus from narrow corporate interests towards companies working with farmers and suppliers to create positive impacts across whole landscapes or geographic areas of production. This approach still needs companies and their suppliers to make commitments and stick to them – but it also asks companies to reach beyond production to protect forests and support smallholders across the landscape.

Meanwhile, the jurisdictional scale of the approach means the landscape and jurisdictional approach can encompass a sub-national state or region, recognizing the irreplaceable role of local governments in land-use planning, governance and law enforcement when it comes to protecting forests.

Collaboration – the key to unlocking impact

In recent years, the landscape and jurisdictional approach has been gathering pace. According to research presented in TFA’s report, more than 110 companies have taken landscape-level action in the cocoa, palm oil, pulp and paper, beef and soy sectors. The number of landscape and jurisdictional approach initiatives supported by companies soared sevenfold in the six years to 2022.

The reason the landscape and jurisdictional approach can be so effective in helping companies tackle deforestation lies in one magical, if overused, word: collaboration. The premise is that local buy-in and collaboration increase the likelihood of long-term impacts. Additionally, there are factors outside corporate control that only communities or governments can influence.

So, for a company sourcing a commodity to have a positive rather than a negative impact, it must collaborate with relevant actors in that landscape or jurisdiction, ranging from local government officials and non-government organizations (NGOs) to suppliers, smallholders and Indigenous people. Each set of actors represents different interests but together – and only together – can they ensure the sustainable (and sustained) production of commodities from that area.

4 reasons why companies should take a landscape approach

Apart from the huge risks to climate, nature and society posed by uncontrolled deforestation, it is in companies’ commercial, legal and reputational interests to eliminate conversion from supply chains – whether to meet voluntary net-zero and deforestation commitments, comply with emerging regulations or secure an ongoing pipeline of produce.

But why should companies use a landscape and jurisdictional approach to complement their ongoing (and necessary) supply chain actions? Here are four reasons:

1. Compliance is too difficult to ensure alone

Guaranteeing compliance with commitments and regulations is a complex challenge that can include millions of smallholders, especially in cocoa and palm oil supply chains. Tackling systemic challenges – such as deforestation, land tenure, law enforcement, Indigenous and local rights – requires collaborating with a wide range of actors on the ground, each of whom can effect change in different parts of the system.

2. Collaborate to achieve impact at scale

Voluntary certifications in sustainable palm oil, cocoa and timber cover just 10-20% of global production areas. As 2030 approaches, achieving results at scale is a top priority. Companies can leverage their impact through the landscape and jurisdictional approach by aligning with local institutions and initiatives, such as Mato Grosso’s state-wide Produce Conserve Include programme in Brazil.

3. Future-proof business through diversifying supply networks

The landscape and jurisdictional approach offers companies the chance to broaden their approach from supply chains to landscapes, reaching beyond individual producers to engage with a whole network of suppliers. To borrow a rainforest metaphor, the deeper and more diverse the root system of producers, the stronger and more sustainable the tree of commodity supply.

4. Reduce duplication and increase efficiency

By pooling resources and sharing knowledge, companies can save time and money while avoiding duplication of efforts. A landscape and jurisdictional approach reduces “leakage” by preventing bad actors from switching to buyers with lower standards. It also mitigates the unintended consequences of the EUDR, which might otherwise cause buyers to abandon smallholders in favour of larger, more compliant producers.

When it comes to protecting forests, collaboration between diverse actors at the landscape scale is the new direction of travel – and it’s gathering pace. With over 110 major companies already committed to a landscape and jurisdictional approach, as well as governments, NGOs and thousands of farmers in producer countries, a landscape approach offers our best chance to halt and reverse agricultural commodity-driven deforestation.

Read the full TFA report – co-published with the Jurisdictional Action Network and supported by partners Proforest and CDP – here: Company Action in Collective Efforts for Sustainable Land Use at Scale .

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