In terms of climate change, cutting trees both adds carbon dioxide to the air and removes the ability to absorb existing carbon dioxide. The loss of clean water and biodiversity from all forests could have many other effects we can’t foresee, touching even your morning cup of coffee. The Amazon actually helps furnish water to some of the soy farmers and beef ranchers who are clearing the forest. The South American rainforest, for example, influences regional and perhaps even global water cycles, and it's key to the water supply in Brazilian cities and neighboring countries. Some scientists believe there could be as many as 1.7 million currently “undiscovered” viruses in mammals and birds, of which up to 827,000 could have the ability to infect people, according to a 2018 study.ĭeforestation’s effects reach far beyond the people and animals where trees are cut. ( How deforestation is leading to more infectious diseases in humans.) In 2014, for example, the Ebola virus killed over 11,000 people in West Africa after fruit bats transmitted the disease to a toddler who was playing near trees where bats were roosting. With wild habitats destroyed and human life ever expanding, the line between animal and human areas blurs, opening the door to zoonotic diseases. That disruption leads to more extreme temperature swings that can be harmful to plants and animals. Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and retains heat at night. There are some 250 million people who live in forest and savannah areas and depend on them for subsistence and income-many of them among the world’s rural poor.Įighty percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and deforestation threatens species including the orangutan, Sumatran tiger, and many species of birds. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl as land is developed for homes. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests-which leads to further deforestation. Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also fell countless trees each year. In the Amazon, cattle ranching and farms-particularly soy plantations-are key culprits. In Malaysia and Indonesia, forests are cut down to make way for producing palm oil, which can be found in everything from shampoo to saltine crackers. Forestry practices, wildfires and, in small part, urbanization account for the rest. The organization Amazon Conservation reports that destruction rose by 21 percent in 2020, a loss the size of Israel.įarming, grazing of livestock, mining, and drilling combined account for more than half of all deforestation. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses recently have been on the rise. Since 1990, the world has lost more than 420 million hectares or about a billion acres of forest, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations-mainly in Africa and South America. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, Nat Geo Image Collection Causes of deforestationįorests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. Climate change has accelerated the rate of ice loss across the continent. Tropical tree cover alone can provide 23 percent of the climate mitigation needed to meet goals set in the Paris Agreement in 2015, according to one estimate.Īn iceberg melts in the waters off Antarctica. Aggressive efforts to rewild and reforest are already showing success. An estimated 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases come from animals, and a major cause of viruses’ jump from wildlife to humans is habitat loss, often through deforestation.īut we can still save our forests. There is also the imminent danger of disease caused by deforestation. As those gases enter the atmosphere, global warming increases, a trend scientists now prefer to call climate change. We need trees for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that they absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that human activities emit. Yet the mass destruction of trees-deforestation-continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain of fuel, and materials for manufacturing and construction. As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change, preserve wildlife, and support more than eight billion people, trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer.
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