rainforest deforestation essay

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Essay on Deforestation

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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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103 Deforestation Essay Topics & Paper Examples

Issues related to ecology require that you put more thought into essay writing than merely penning ideas that build up into a coherent argument.

Creating a good deforestation essay relies on achieving a superb structure that helps your audience apperceive your subject quicker and with a more sympathetic outlook.

Thus, recognizing the far-reaching effect of various events becomes an admirable attempt at drawing attention to possible future developments of a human impact environment. In this article you will learn the essentials of writing a deforestation essay, as well as 97 brilliant topic ideas for your paper.

📃 The Deforestation Essay Structure

🏆 remarkable deforestation topics & essay examples, ✍️ interesting deforestation essay topics, 🔖 good essay topics on deforestation, ❓ research question about deforestation.

Doing research is an essential aspect of pre-writing. It allows you to understand how you can best develop your central theme through the creation of a deforestation essay outline.

Writing a topic sentence for each of your planned paragraphs will help you gauge how much information you have for each sub-theme. In turn, doing so will demonstrate your coverage of the full issue.

Searching for appropriate and credible book and journal titles, as well as research papers and interviews with scientists, will allow you to form a comprehensive overview of a pollution issue.

Depending on your chosen problem, you may need to delve into a historical explanation of its creation, its development, and future implications. A sample outline may look like this:

• An introduction, where you give the audience a brief overview and present a deforestation essay thesis statement;
• A historical overview that helps you set the scene for your issue;
• An outline of the on-going process, depending on your chosen approach to the topic;
• A demonstration of its implications that relies on scientific studies and research predictions;
• A conclusion, where you tie together all your previous arguments into one, which acts as an answer to your thesis statement.

You may divide and increase the number of paragraphs in a manner that suits your particular approach, but the basic structure necessitates establishing the problem’s continuity.

For example, if you are writing about the process of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, you can approach it from an economic, sociopolitical, and even scientific viewpoint.

However, whichever you pick, you should always be ready to counterargument your readers’ thoughts, which is something you should keep in mind as you write.

A deforestation essay introduction and conclusion should mirror each other. In your first paragraph, you should present some possible inferences and interest the readers with a lack of specific answers, while the last one should leave no problem unaddressed. Initially, you should engage your readers; finally, they must be satisfied with the level of your conclusions.

If you still feel unsure how to start, you can look at examples of papers online. Deforestation topics are widely covered, and you can judge for yourself what structural approaches work and which ones are useless at effectively convincing the audience. Pay attention to the way these authors structure their issue and how they present its problem.

A title is another aspect of essay structure that writers often overlook. Compare “A Future with No Environment” to “Dustbowl: Who are the Losers of a Conservation Competition?”

Both titles serve a purpose, as the former hints at the conclusion of the paper, while the latter acts more as an introduction.

Understand what you want to achieve before writing out some deforestation essay titles and picking one that best suits your means.

Use IvyPanda to get more help on essay writing. Advice and tips for all kinds of students!

• Deforestation Causes and Effects The challenge of deforestation has existed for centuries, leading to the loss of a huge percentage of forest cover across the world.
• Deforestation and Effective Ways to Prevent It The most effective way of solving the problem and preventing deforestation is through large-scale actions that would necessitate industries to comply with standards for deforestation minimization.
• Deforestation Problem Deforestation is the cutting down of trees for the purpose of converting the land to none forest use. Forests initially covered a quarter of the earth planet, but the encroachment of human activities leaving bare […]
• The Impact of Logging and Deforestations on an Ecosystem 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 […]
• Human Impact to the Environment – Cuba Deforestation Issue One of the most significant aspects during the political eras in the nation that characterized the political development was the fluctuation in deforestation.
• Deforestation and Its Man-Made Causes The process of deforestation can be justified as a possibility to meet the needs of the population, including feeding or manufacturing.
• Deforestation in Thailand The environmental value of the forests in Thailand is evident in the efforts the government and other stakeholders undertake to conserve the environment.
• The Campaign Addressing the Issue of Deforestation Contrarily, the brown color is a symbol of death, and the brown stands for the adverse consequences of deforestation for the whole of humankind and the environment.
• Deforestation in the Tropical Rainforests This study aims at analyzing the causes of deforestation in tropical rainforest, the impacts of the same and the methods of controlling deforestation.
• Analysis of Tesco’s Deforestation Problem The focus of this paper is to explore the conflict involving global meat production and its link to deforestation and to evaluate Tesco’s response to the issue from a stakeholder management perspective.
• Deforestation Effects and Solutions Excessive clearing of vegetation on the earth’s service results to an alteration of the equilibrium in gaseous volumes in the atmosphere, and the current levels of greenhouse gases are alarming, especially in the urban areas.
• Deforestation Causes in the Amazon The composition and appearance of the humid tropical forest of the Amazon amaze with the abundance of plant life forms, the exceptional richness of the species composition, and the density and complexity of the canopy.
• Deforestation: Biological Concepts The three biological concepts/processes essential to life relevant to the topic of deforestation include sensitivity or response to the environment, homeostasis, and adaptation. Homeostasis is essential to consider in the context of deforestation because forests […]
• History of Deforestation Alternatively, they would cut vital elements of the tree in order to cause the upper part of the tree to fall off gradually. The birth of the naval store affected the pattern of deforestation in […]
• Linking the Global Economy to Deforestation This involves the removal of trees, the degradation of the forest’s aesthetic value, and the loss of productive land. From a global point of view, other countries will take an example and adopt a policy […]
• Deforestation of the Amazon: Amazon Fires The problem of deforestation is one of the most acute environmental problems on the planet, and its impact on the environment can hardly be overrated.
• Deforestation Processes, Areas and Species Affected The issue represents an important study topic in the fields of biology and ecology because the cutting down of forests has significantly changed landscapes on a global scale. Deforestation is the most prevalent in tropical […]
• The Deforestation Issue and Future Directions Sensitivity or response to the environment refers to the reaction of living beings to changes occurring due to deforestation, while homeostasis is the ability of an organism to function despite changes. In terms of the […]
• Deforestation Impact on Environment and Human On a larger scale, it is important to reduce the consumption of paper and engage in raising awareness of the issue to strengthen the actions for addressing it.
• What Should the Brazilian Government Do About Reducing Amazon’s Deforestation? Political developments in Brazil and the ineffectiveness of existing policy proposals to mitigate the effects of deforestation on the forest have largely contributed to the ecological destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
• Wolves and Deforestation: Thinking Like a Mountain For example, to the Deer, the echo makes it alert due to awaiting danger, whereas to the hunter the bawling is a warning of the awaiting dangers.
• Deforestation in South East Asia Introduction The wave of globalization has transformed the way human beings consume different materials and produce products that are marketed hundreds of miles away. The increasing demand for energy, food, bio-fuels, and tropical wood has affected the global environment. In southeast Asia, different forces and factors are currently driving the process of deforestation. The discussion […]
• Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Forest Furthermore, the recent forest fire in the Amazon forest turned the world’s attention to how current Brazil’s government is handling the deforestation issue.
• Deforestation Crisis in Mexico This term refers to the intentional destruction of the forests through the logging process and the burning of the other remains of trees after the logs are gotten.
• Soybean and Deforestation in the United States Economists and planters collaborate to identify additional areas for soybean production, neglecting the threat of elimination of rainforests and the inability for researchers to find out new ways of cultivating this plant.
• Brazilian Amazonia: Biodiversity and Deforestation Secondly, the mayor persuaded the people to stop deforestation to save the Amazon. Additionally, deforestation leads to displacement of indigenous people living in the Amazonia.
• Amazonian Deforestation, Its Causes and Trends The huge destruction in the rainforest happens disregarding the fact that the Amazon is the source of life to thousands of species and is oftentimes referred to as the lungs of the planet.
• Over-Exploitation and Deforestation Effects With this goal in mind, the European powers were forced to look for wood supplies from different parts of the globe.
• Environment: Tropical Deforestation Causes in Indonesia As indicated, one of the major causes of the deforestation in the Indonesian Sumatra rainforest is the logging for timber trade.
• Central Africa Deforestation However, even though the rate of deforestation is relatively low in this part of Africa compared to other major forest regions in the planet, the trend poses serious threats to the well being of the […]
• Environmental Stewardship of Deforestation Environmental stewardship refers to the act of protecting and conserving the environment. According to Aldo Leopold, environmental stewardship is promoted through the improvement of the relationship between humans and the environment.
• Deforestation Issue in the Dominican Republic The difference is brought about by the actions the countries’ leaders and citizens took or failed to take to preserve the environment.
• Physical Domain, Deforestation and Trends In the political domain there is conflict in the effort to conserve the forests since some say the industrialization and urbanization have to take place first before conservation until Brazil provides jobs for people who […]
• The Effects of Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest
• Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation
• Deforestation And Its Effects On The Climate, Wildlife, And Human Civili
• Technical Efficiency, Farm Size and Tropical Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonian Forest
• Land Reform Policies, the Sources of Violent Conflict, and Implications for Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
• Investigating the Impact of Agricultural Land Losses on Deforestation: Evidence From a Peri-urban Area in Canada
• What Deforestation Can Do To Our Environment
• Deforestation and Minimal Logging Advantages
• Why is Deforestation a Global Concern
• The Role of Tenure Security and Private Time Preference in Neotropical Deforestation
• Balancing Risks from Climate Policy Uncertainties: The Role of Options and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
• The Impact of Settlement Design on Tropical Deforestation Rates and Resulting Land Cover Patterns
• Exchange Rates, Soybean Supply Response, and Deforestation in South America
• What Are the Consequences of Deforestation?
• An Analysis of the Issue of Deforestation and Its Threat to Environment
• Deforestation And Global Climate Change
• Environmental Problems Of Deforestation And Environmental
• The Effect of Deforestation on the Climate and Environment
• Modeling Amazon Deforestation for Policy Purposes
• Foreign Transfers and Tropical Deforestation
• Creating Policies To Contain Unproductive Deforestation
• The Impact Of Deforestation On Bird Communication Biology
• The Negative Effects of Deforestation on the World
• The Devestating Effect of Deforestation and the Alternatives for Helping Our Planet
• Tragedy Of Deforestation In Brazil And Indonesia
• The Effects Of The Land Change Made By Tropical Deforestation
• How Deforestation Causes Global Warming And Negatively Impacts The Environment
• The Two Major Issues of Deforestation, Its Causes and Effects to the Environment
• Tropical Deforestation And Its Effect On Global Climate
• The Role of International Law Concerning Deforestation
• An Analysis of People’s Responsibilities for Rainforest Deforestation
• Effects Of Deforestation On The Philippines
• Global Warming, Deforestation, Nuclear Waste, And Pollution
• Transport, Economic Growth, and Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo
• Causes And Effects Of Deforestation In Environmental Sciences
• Poverty and Tropical Deforestation by Smallholders in Forest Margin Areas: Evidence from Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
• The Role of Government Spending on Deforestation and Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Land Use Change
• The Dangerous Global Issue of Deforestation and Its Impact on the Environment
• Urban Deforestation and Urban Development
• Modelling Land Use, Deforestation, and Policy Analysis
• What Are the Biggest Drivers of Tropical Deforestation?
• Why Tackling Deforestation Is So Important for Slowing Climate Change?
• How Deforestation Causes Global Warming and Negatively Impacts the Environment?
• How Does Deforestation Impact Birds?
• Can “Fragile States” Decide to Reduce Their Deforestation?
• Does Deforestation Increase Malaria Prevalence?
• Does Free Trade Increase Deforestation and the Effects of Regional Trade Agreements?
• Does Poverty Constrain Deforestation in Peru?
• How Does Deforestation Lead To Frequent Floods and Droughts?
• How Does Household Food Insecurity Experience Impact Deforestation in Cameroon?
• How Does Deforestation Impact Wildlife and Biodiversity?
• Who Initiated a Movement Against Deforestation?
• What Are the Reasons Behind Deforestation?
• How Does Deforestation Affect Living Things?
• What Has Driven Deforestation in Developing Countries Since the 2000s?
• Who Is Responsible for Deforestation?
• What Forest Is Most Affected by Deforestation?
• How Does Deforestation Affect the Plants?
• How Is Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest Affecting Biodiversity?
• What Systems Is Deforestation Affecting?
• How Has Deforestation Upset the Balance in Nature?
• How Forest Loss Is Leading to a Rise in Human Disease?
• Is Deforestation Necessary for Development?
• What Is the Cost of Deforestation?
• Does Deforestation Contribute to Food Insecurity?
• Why Deforestation Is the Main Cause of Environmental Degradation?
• Why Is Deforestation a Problem in Developing Countries?
• How Does Deforestation Lead To Famine?
• What Habitats Are Being Destroyed by Deforestation?
• Why Does Deforestation Affect Animals?
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• ENVIRONMENT

Why deforestation matters—and what we can do to stop it

Large scale destruction of trees—deforestation—affects ecosystems, climate, and even increases risk for zoonotic diseases spreading to humans.

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. 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.

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. As those gases enter the atmosphere, global warming increases, a trend scientists now prefer to call climate change.

There is also the imminent danger of disease caused by deforestation. 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.

But we can still save our forests. Aggressive efforts to rewild and reforest are already showing success. 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 .

Causes of deforestation

Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. 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. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses recently have been on the rise . The organization Amazon Conservation reports that destruction rose by 21 percent in 2020 , a loss the size of Israel.

Farming, grazing of livestock, mining, and drilling combined account for more than half of all deforestation . Forestry practices, wildfires and, in small part, urbanization account for the rest. 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. In the Amazon, cattle ranching and farms—particularly soy plantations—are key culprits .

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Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also fell countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally , also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl as land is developed for homes.

Not all deforestation is intentional. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees.

Why it matters

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.

Eighty 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. Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and retains heat at night. That disruption leads to more extreme temperature swings that can be harmful to plants and animals.

With wild habitats destroyed and human life ever expanding, the line between animal and human areas blurs, opening the door to zoonotic diseases . 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.

( How deforestation is leading to more infectious diseases in humans .)

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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 .

Deforestation’s effects reach far beyond the people and animals where trees are cut. 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. The Amazon actually helps furnish water to some of the soy farmers and beef ranchers who are clearing the forest. 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 .

In terms of climate change, cutting trees both adds carbon dioxide to the air and removes the ability to absorb existing carbon dioxide. If tropical deforestation were a country, according to the World Resources Institute , it would rank third in carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions, behind China and the U.S.

What can be done

The numbers are grim, but many conservationists see reasons for hope . A movement is under way to preserve existing forest ecosystems and restore lost tree cover by first reforesting (replanting trees) and ultimately rewilding (a more comprehensive mission to restore entire ecosystems).

( Which nation could be the first to be rewilded ?)

Organizations and activists are working to fight illegal mining and logging—National Geographic Explorer Topher White, for example, has come up with a way to use recycled cell phones to monitor for chainsaws . In Tanzania, the residents of Kokota have planted more than 2 million trees on their small island over a decade, aiming to repair previous damage. And in Brazil, conservationists are rallying in the face of ominous signals that the government may roll back forest protections.

( Which tree planting projects should you support ?)

Stopping deforestation before it reaches a critical point will play a key role in avoiding the next zoonotic pandemic. A November 2022 study showed that when bats struggle to find suitable habitat, they travel closer to human communities where diseases are more likely to spillover. Inversely, when bats’ native habitats were left intact, they stayed away from humans. This research is the first to show how we can predict and avoid spillovers through monitoring and maintaining wildlife habitats.

For consumers, it makes sense to examine the products and meats you buy, looking for sustainably produced sources when you can. Nonprofit groups such as the Forest Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance certify products they consider sustainable, while the World Wildlife Fund has a palm oil scorecard for consumer brands.

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Amazon Deforestation and Climate Change

Join Gisele Bundchen when she meets with one of Brazil’s top climate scientists to discuss the complexity of the Amazon rainforest and its connection to Earth’s atmosphere.

Anthropology, Geography

High on a tower overlooking the lush Amazon canopy, Gisele Bundchen and Brazilian climate scientist Antonio Nobre talk about the importance of the rain forest and the impact of cutting down its trees.

As Nobre explains, the rainforest is not only home to an incredible diversity of species, it also has a critical cooling effect on the planet because its trees channel heat high into the atmosphere. In addition, forests absorb and store carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere—CO2 that is released back into the atmosphere when trees are cut and burned.

Nobre warns that if deforestation continues at current levels, we are headed for disaster. The Amazon region could become drier and drier, unable to support healthy habitats or croplands.

Find more of this story in the “Fueling the Fire” episode of the National Geographic Channel’s Years of Living Dangerously series.

The Amazon rain forest absorbs one-fourth of the CO2 absorbed by all the land on Earth. The amount absorbed today, however, is 30% less than it was in the 1990s because of deforestation. A major motive for deforestation is cattle ranching. China, the United States, and other countries have created a consumer demand for beef, so clearing land for cattle ranching can be profitable—even if it’s illegal. The demand for pastureland, as well as cropland for food such as soybeans, makes it difficult to protect forest resources.

Many countries are making progress in the effort to stop deforestation. Countries in South America and Southeast Asia, as well as China, have taken steps that have helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the destruction of forests by one-fourth over the past 15 years.

Brazil continues to make impressive strides in reducing its impact on climate change. In the past two decades, its CO2 emissions have dropped more than any other country. Destruction of the rain forest in Brazil has decreased from about 19,943 square kilometers (7,700 square miles) per year in the late 1990s to about 5,180 square kilometers (2,000 square miles) per year now. Moving forward, the major challenge will be fighting illegal deforestation.

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Deforestation, one of our planet’s most vital defences against global warming is itself being ravaged by climate change and other causes, what is deforestation.

Deforestation is happening around the world with all forest types but occurs mostly in tropical areas. Tropical primary forest loss in 2022 totaled 4.1 million hectares, the equivalent of losing 11 football fields of forest every minute. All this forest loss produced 2.7 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to India’s annual fossil fuel emissions.

Deforestation means cutting or clearing trees and forests covering a large area, and not replanting them.

Forest degradation is a related term that indicates when a forest is no longer functioning as a healthy ecosystem: A degraded forest can no longer sustain populations the way it used to. For instance, it might not offer enough quality habitat or food to animals. In other words, when a forest is degraded it still exists, but it can no longer function well. It becomes a shell of its former self.

There are four different types of forests worldwide: tropical forests, temperate forests, and boreal forests and plantations.

Intensity of Amazon drought, June to November 2023

In 2023, the Amazon rainforest suffered the worst drought in at least half a century, according to a 2024 study . Rapid deforestation has left it more vulnerable to weather extremes.

Deforestation within the Amazon Basin over a period of 5 years. NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Deforestation and the Climate Emergency

Deforestation is a major contributor to global warming and the climate emergency. A mature tree absorbs and stores carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas we emit from burning fossil fuels, like coal, gas, and oil. These gases cause climate change and lead to a warming in the planet’s temperature. As more forests are destroyed, so too is our ability to trap these greenhouse gases and slow rising temperatures around the world which cause droughts, forest fires, and more frequent hurricanes and typhoons.

Rainforest nations are slowing deforestation based on goodwill and with little financial support. Join our movement.

11 football pitches of forest were lost every minute in 2022, representing a total area of 4.1 million hectares..

Heavy rainfall and high sunlight quickly damage the topsoil in clearings of the tropical rainforests. In such circumstances, the forest will take much longer to regenerate. The land will not be suitable for agricultural use for quite some time.

Other Consequences of Deforestation

Deforestation is a critical environmental concern. The loss of trees and forests can cause desertification, soil erosion, fewer crops, flooding, and a host of other problems:

• Food problems Once deprived of their forest cover, lands rapidly degrade in quality, losing their fertility, and arability
• Exposure of soil to heat and rain Heavy rainfall and high sunlight quickly damage the topsoil in clearings of the tropical rainforests. In such circumstances, the forest will take much longer to regenerate. The land will not be suitable for agricultural use for quite some time.
• Flooding Fertile topsoil is eroded and flooded into the lower regions. Many coastal fisheries and coral reefs suffer from the sedimentation brought on by the flooding. This results in adverse effects on the economic viability of many businesses and damage to the wildlife population.
• Loss of biodiversity through destruction and extinction of many plants and animal species.
• Displacement of indigenous communities The loss of forests threatens some indigenous people’s way of life and survival – as they have to move out of the forests to town and cities.
• Economic loss A forest’s value is often higher when it is left standing than it could be worth when it is harvested as it provides a host of natural services, such as water purification and carbon dioxide storage. It also provides a home to millions of flora and fauna that are the source of ancient and modern medicines.

The most common reasons for deforestation are to clear the land for farming and ranches or to cut trees for firewood, paper, and lumber for furniture.

“even after accounting for ongoing reforestation efforts, deforestation today claims an area close to the size of greece every year. achieving a 1.5-degree pathway would mean dramatically slowing this.”, causes of deforestation.

• Population growth: To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population in developing countries, forests are converted for agricultural lands, new living settlements, and infrastructure-building of roads.
• Mining. The increase of mining for gold and other valuable minerals in tropical forests is furthering damage due to the rising demand and high mineral prices. This causes environmental impacts like soil erosion, the formation of sinkholes, and contamination of soil, groundwater and surface water by chemicals from mining processes.
• Logging or cutting of trees for paper production, firewood, building materials and furniture-making
• Commercial agriculture, such as palm oil which destroy mangrove plantations
• Livestock ranching. Conversion of forests to cattle ranching and deforestation are most vital in Central and South America

In a nutshell, agricultural expansion is the main driver of deforestation in Africa, Latin America, and (Sub)tropical Asia alike. Agriculture is especially responsible for deforestation in Latin America, where it accounts for over 90% of deforestation (whereas in Africa and subtropical Asia, it accounts for 70 – 75%).

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took this photograph of numerous gold prospecting pits in eastern Peru. The pits stand out brilliantly in this image due to the reflected sunlight. The river and the pits cut through the otherwise unbroken Amazon rainforest in Peru’s Madre de Dios state. Nasa Earth Observatory.

Commercial vs. Subsistence Agriculture

The relative impacts of commercial vs. subsistence agriculture vary by continent. In Latin America, commercial agriculture occupies over a 60% proportion of deforestation drivers, while subsistence agriculture is about half that number. In Africa and Asia, meanwhile, subsistence agriculture is a larger driver of deforestation than commercial agriculture.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the majority of tropical deforestation is caused by only four crops in particular: beef, palm oil, soy, and wood products. Of these four, beef cattle are especially linked to deforestation and environmental degradation.

As for forest degradation, causes again vary widely by region. In Africa, collection of fuelwood for charcoal production is the largest driver. In Latin American and subtropical Asia, timber logging is instead the largest contributor.

An area of tropical forest the size of Switzerland was lost in 2023, as tree losses surged, according to Global Forest Watch

An area of tropical forest the size of switzerland was lost in 2023, as tree losses surged, according to  global forest watch, more about deforestation.

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LEARNING TOOL

Local and global effects of deforestation in the amazon rainforest.

Students analyze a map to identify and describe multiple landscapes in the Amazon rainforest, the organisms that inhabit those landscapes, and the role of the forest in the water cycle and nutrient cycle. Then they construct a scientific argument for the effects of deforestation on the local ecosystem and the water and nutrient cycles.

Geography, Human Geography

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Preparation

• Materials You Provide: Pencils
• Physical Space: Classroom
• Setup: Students will need to be in participant structures that allow for whole class discussion as well as small group work. A space that allows students to move freely between these structures is needed.
• Grouping : Large-group instruction
• Other Notes: This activity is intended to be conducted in three, 50-minute class periods: Day 1—students explore the map and construct knowledge about the water and nutrient cycles and the organisms that live in different landscapes of the forest; Day 2—students construct arguments; Day 3—students present arguments.
• map reading skills
• ability to select evidence from maps and text that supports a claim
• ability to obtain, evaluate, and communicate information from media and text resources

Rainforests are disappearing at an alarmingly fast pace, largely due to human development over the past few centuries. Once covering 14% of land on Earth, rainforests now make up only 6%. Since 1947, the total area of tropical rainforests has likely been reduced by more than half, to about 6.2 to 7.8 million square kilometers (3 million square miles). Many biologists expect rainforests will lose 5-10% of their species each decade. Rampant  deforestation  could cause many important rainforest habitats to disappear completely within the next hundred years. Throughout the Amazon, mining and logging operations clear cut to build roads and dig mines. The Amazon is also threatened by massive hydroelectric power projects, where dams flood acres of land. Development is encroaching on rainforest habitats from all sides.

More than 20% of the world’s oxygen is produced in the rainforest. The rainforest is also a carbon sink, which means it helps to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. With rapid deforestation, it has been estimated that 20% of the Amazon rainforest has disappeared in the last 50 years, which has already led to detrimental effects to biodiversity and climate change.

There are many species of plants and animals that live in the Amazon rainforest and are endangered or threatened, including primates such as the spider monkey and red-handed howler monkey. When large trees are removed, the large canopy that provided shelter, food, or nesting for some of these species disappears, resulting in relocation and possible fragmentation of some populations. Changes made to the ecosystem affect all life that lives there, but for the endangered or threatened populations, these changes could challenge their survival.

Students will:

• use a map to identify the areas of habitat loss in the Amazon rainforest due to deforestation
• use a map to identify landscapes about the role of the rainforest in maintaining the water and nutrient cycles
• use a map to construct knowledge about the role of the rainforest in maintaining the water and nutrient cycles
• construct a scientific argument that includes a claim, multiple pieces of evidence from a map, and scientific reasoning for the effects of deforestation on the water and nutrient cycles and the plants and animals within the local ecosystem

Teaching Approach: Learning-for-use

Teaching Method: Cooperative learning

Skills Summary

This activity targets the following skills:

• Information Literacy
• Communication and Collaboration
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Environmental Literacy
• Global Awareness
• Understanding
• Acquiring Geographic Information
• Analyzing Geographic Information
• Analyzing and interpreting data
• Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
• Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

1.   Activate students’ prior knowledge about the local and global environmental effects of deforestation.

Introduce the activity with a discussion about students’ local area and the organisms that live there. Ask students to brainstorm what roles trees might play in the forest. Then have students brainstorm consequences to the plants and animals that inhabit the local ecosystem if all the trees were removed. Introduce the term deforestation and share that deforestation is of major concern in the Amazon rainforest. Ask the guiding question: How does deforestation in the Amazon rainforest affect the water cycle , nutrient cycle, and plant and animal life? Facilitate a whole-class discussion around the Habitat Loss inset map with a focus on Deforestation on the Amazonia: The Human Impact side of the map. Explain to students that they will explore the layers of forest and different organisms that live there along with the role trees play in the nutrient and water cycles to understand the effects of deforestation.

2. Construct knowledge about the role of trees in the Amazon ecosystem.

Distribute the map Amazonia: Vital and Fragile and the worksheet Role of Trees in the Amazon. Have students use the map to explore different types of vegetation, the landscapes of the forest and how they provide different habitats for the organisms that live there, and the role trees play in the water and nutrient cycles. Ask students to complete Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the worksheet.

3. Construct an evidence-based argument for limiting deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

Divide students into small groups and distribute a copy of the worksheet Constructing an Evidence-Based Argument, to each small group. Direct groups to construct an evidence-based argument for the need to limit deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Distribute the Evidence-Based Argument about Protecting the Trees in the Amazon Rainforest Rubric and discuss the rubric criteria as a class. Explain to students that they should use their work from the completed worksheet, Role of Trees in the Amazon, to help identify the evidence they need to support their claim(s).

4. Have students present their arguments.

Have small groups share their arguments about the importance of limiting deforestation in the Amazon rainforest with the class. Conclude with a whole-class discussion reflecting on the potential loss of plants and animals in the Amazon rainforest and the potential changes to the water and nutrient cycles due to deforestation. To wrap up the activity, ask: What is deforestation? What are the effects of deforestation to the plants and animals in the Amazon rainforest? How would the water and nutrient cycle be affected by deforestation? 

Alternative Assessment

Collect evidence-based arguments from small groups and use the provided rubric to assess groups’ final arguments.

Use the provided answer key to check students’ completed Role of Trees in the Amazon worksheets.

Extending the Learning

• Have students discuss how the different type of water (black, clear, white), described in the Birth of a River section of Amazonia: Vital and Fragile, influences the types of organisms that live there.
• Have students think about the following question: What does the rainforest do for us—even if we don’t live there? Remind students that the Amazon rainforest is a carbon sink. The Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in keeping carbon out of our atmosphere, as it naturally sequesters about 28% of the atmospheric carbon emitted by the burning of fossil fuels elsewhere. But, it can only remain a carbon sink as long as it absorbs more carbon dioxide than it releases. Ask students to think about and discuss what would happen if there were not enough trees to absorb carbon. Ask: Where would the carbon go? (If a large number of trees are removed, we will experience more global warming.)

Tips & Modifications

• Tip: The Amazonia: The Human Impact map contains many layers of information. It may be helpful to read through some of the heads and summaries as a class and discuss what information is likely to be contained in that component of the map.
• Modification: This activity works best in small groups. Cooperative learning benefits advanced learners and struggling readers. Assign groups so that advanced students are grouped with struggling readers.
• Modification: To ensure that everyone participates in group work, assign or allow students to choose roles according to their strengths (e.g., recorder, facilitator, speaker, computer driver).

Connections to National Standards, Principles, and Practices

IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts

• Standard 7: Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

National Geography Standards

• Standard 1 : How to use maps and other geographic representations, geospatial technologies, and spatial thinking to understand and communicate information
• Standard 14 : How human actions modify the physical environment
• Standard 15 : How physical systems affect human systems
• Standard 4 : The physical and human characteristics of places

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.2: Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.
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Trouble in the Amazon

The rainforest is starting to release its carbon.

Is it heading towards a tipping point?

24 August 2023

By Daniel Grossman

Photographs by Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media for Nature

Video by Patrick Vanier/Hilaea Media for Nature

Climate change, deforestation and other human threats are driving the Amazon towards the limits of survival.

Researchers are racing to chart its future.

The Pulitzer Center in Washington DC supported travel for Daniel Grossman and for photographer Dado Galdieri and videographer Patrick Vanier.

This article is also available as a pdf version .

Luciana Gatti stares grimly out of the window of the small aircraft as it takes off from the city of Santarém, Brazil, in the heart of the eastern Amazon forest. Minutes into the flight, the plane passes over a 30-kilometre stretch of near-total ecological devastation. It’s a patchwork of farmland, filled with emerald-green corn stalks and newly clear-cut plots where the rainforest once stood.

“This is awful. So sad,” says Gatti, a climate scientist at the National Institute for Space Research in São José dos Campos, Brazil.

Gatti is part of a broad group of scientists attempting to forecast the future of the Amazon rainforest. The land ecosystems of the world together absorb about 30% of the carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels; scientists think that most of this takes place in forests, and the Amazon is by far the world’s largest contiguous forest.

Rows of black-pepper plants grow in a field near Santarém that was formerly rainforest.

Since 2010, Gatti has collected air samples over the Amazon in planes such as this one, to monitor how much CO 2 the forest absorbs. In 2021, she reported data from 590 flights that showed that the Amazon forest’s uptake — its carbon sink — is weak over most of its area 1 . In the southeastern Amazon, the forest has become a source of CO 2 .

The finding gained headlines around the world and surprised many scientists, who expected the Amazon to be a much stronger carbon sink. For Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist at the University of São Paulo Institute of Advanced Studies in Brazil, the change was happening much too soon. In 2016, using climate models, he and his colleagues predicted that the combination of unchecked deforestation and global climate change would eventually push the Amazon forest past a “tipping point” , transforming the climate across a vast swathe of the Amazon 2 . Then, the conditions that support a lush, closed-canopy forest would no longer exist. Gatti’s observations seem to show the early signs of what he forecast, Nobre says.

A dealership for the farming equipment company John Deere sits at the edge of the rainforest in Santarém.

“What we were predicting to happen perhaps in two or three decades is already taking place,” says Nobre, who was one of a dozen co-authors of the paper with Gatti.

I’ve travelled to Santarém, where the Tapajós River joins the Amazon River, to join Gatti and other scientists trying to determine whether the forest is heading for an irreversible transformation towards a degraded form of savannah. Another big question is whether the forest can still be saved by slowing climate change, halting Amazon deforestation and restoring its damaged lands, something Nobre suggests is possible.

The large-scale deforestation we saw from the air is the most visible threat to the Amazon. But the forest is suffering in other, less-obvious ways. Erika Berenguer, an ecologist at the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, UK, has found that even intact forest is no longer as healthy as it once was, because of forces such as climate change and the impacts of agriculture that spill beyond farm borders. Earlier this year, a large international team of researchers, including Berenguer, reported that such changes were having effects across 38% of the intact Amazon forest 3 .

Gatti first visited Santarém in the late 1990s, when most of the farming in this part of the Amazon was practised by smallholders for subsistence purposes. Now, she’s astounded by the scale of destruction that has ravaged the jungle. While passing over one huge, newly razed parcel of Amazon forest, Gatti’s voice crackles over the plane’s intercom. “They are killing the forest to transform everything into soy beans.”

Breath of the forest

The plane that collects air samples for Gatti is housed in a cavernous hangar at Santarém airport. On a rainy day in May, she visits the hangar to meet with Washington Salvador, one of her regular pilots. Gatti checks on the rugged plastic suitcases she has had shipped to Santarém and stored in her tiny office at the airport. Inside them, cradled in foam, are 12 sturdy glass flasks the size and shape of one-litre soft-drink bottles.

Luciana Gatti (right) prepares for a flight that will collect air samples over the Amazon forest.

Climate scientist Luciana Gatti stands at the top of a tower above the canopy, watching one of the aeroplanes that collects air samples over the forest.

Luciana Gatti discusses threats to the rainforest.

The problem is that we are advancing a lot in deforestation.

There is a moratorium that is not being obeyed.

When we compare the size of the deforested area from 2010 to 2018 and look at the years 2019 and 2020, which were part of the Bolsonaro government, we see an increase in 70% of planted areas for soy, 60% for corn and 13% for cattle raising.

So a very large increase is happening.

The moratoriums, the agreements are not being respected.

Gatti doesn’t need to accompany Salvador when he collects the samples. That’s fortunate, because she gets air sick flying in small planes. The pilots who work with her fly twice a month to a specific sampling location, one in each quadrant of the Amazon basin. Once they reach an altitude of 4,420 metres over a landmark, the pilot presses a button, opening valves and turning on a compressor that fills the first flask with air taken through a nozzle from outside. Then, they dive in a steep, tight spiral centred around the landmark, collecting 11 more samples, each at a specified altitude. At the final level, the pilot practically buzzes the canopy, sometimes barely 100 metres above the ground.

In her laboratory at the National Institute for Space Research, Gatti measures the amount of CO 2 in the samples. She calculates how much the forest soaks up (or releases) by comparing her measurements with those taken over the Atlantic Ocean, which is upstream of the trade winds that blow over the Amazon.

This patch of the rainforest in the eastern Amazon has been carved up into an array of fields. (Video contains the sound of an aeroplane engine).

Flasks used for sampling air above the rainforest. Luciana Gatti and her colleagues use these samples to determine how carbon dioxide moves into and out of the forest.

Scott Denning, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins who has collaborated with Gatti, says that her research has been an “amazingly logistically difficult project”. “The beauty of Luciana’s work, and also the difficulty of her work, is that she’s done it over and over and over again, every two weeks for ten years.”

Fading forest

Air samples taken over the Amazon rainforest at five sites (orange dots) track the movement of carbon dioxide into and out of the forest between 2010 and 2018. By measuring the total flow of carbon (black) and subtracting that released by fires (grey), researchers calculate the net flux (orange). Negative values indicate carbon sinks — areas that absorb more than they naturally emit. The southeast has become a carbon source, releasing more than it absorbs.

Carbon movement

Flux from fire

Total carbon flux

Forest cover

Regional carbon flux

(grams of carbon

per square metre per day)

Measurement sites

Nature publications remain neutral with regard to contested jurisdictional claims in published maps.

Source: Ref. 1

Regional carbon flux (grams of carbon

Lax enforcement

Some of the forces transforming the Amazon biome are on display at Santarém’s port, where a trio of eight-storey-high silos looms over the city’s fish market. Each silo can hold 18,000 tonnes of maize (corn) or soya beans, waiting to be shipped to other parts of Brazil and then around the globe. As of 2017, more than 13% of the Amazon’s old-growth forest had been cleared, largely for ranching and for growing crops. Almost two-thirds of the biome is in Brazil, which had lost more than 17% of such forest by that year, and its deforestation rates surged in 2019 during the administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

A trio of grain silos stands near the edge of Santarém.

Brazil’s Forest Code is supposed to protect the country’s woods. One key provision requires that in the Amazon, 80% of any plot, a portion known as the Legal Reserve, must be left intact. But many scientists and forest activists argue that lax enforcement makes it too easy to circumvent the law, and that fines for not complying aren’t effective deterrents because they are rarely paid.

Also, people often get title to public or Indigenous land that they illegally occupy and clear, through a process called land grabbing. Philip Fearnside, an ecologist at Brazil’s National Institute for Research in Amazonia in Manaus, says, “Brazil is basically the only country where you can still go into the forest and start clearing and expect to come out with a land title. It’s like the Wild West of North America in the eighteenth century.”

After a one-hour drive south from Santarém, we meet the Indigenous chief — the cacique — of the tiny village of Açaizal in the reservation known as Terra Munduruku do Planalto. He sits on a deck at a rough-hewn wooden table, positioned so he can watch for unwanted outsiders who might drive past.

Josenildo Munduruku, leader of his tribe, in a school with some of his students.

Josenildo Munduruku — as is customary, his surname is the same as his tribe — says that decades ago, non-Indigenous homesteaders began establishing smallholdings on land that he and his ancestors had occupied for generations. He says that they built houses and opened up cattle pastures without ever asking permission or obtaining legal rights. Previous generations of his community didn’t object. “Our parents did not have this type of understanding — they were not concerned about it,” he says.

The land eventually ended up in the hands of commercial growers, who buy up adjacent plots then raze huge swathes of jungle. “They do not care about these trees from which we extract medicine. For them, these trees are meaningless, useless,” says Munduruku. He says that his community has tried unsuccessfully to get help from the government to recover some of the land.

Maize (corn) grows in a field in the Munduruku territory next to intact rainforest.

A farmer harvests a field in a deforested area near Santarém.

The high value of some tropical hardwoods also threatens the forest. Off a highway just west of Açaizal, a timber-mill worker sends a massive log through an industrial saw, which slices off a plank as thick as an encyclopedia. Other workers shape the rough board into standard dimensions.

Ricardo Veronese, the timber mill’s owner, says that his family members, a small lumber dynasty, came to the state of Pará from Mato Grosso state 17 years ago. “We came to Pará because there was plenty of virgin forest left,” he says. The situation in Mato Grosso is different: since the mid-1980s, roughly 40% of its rainforest has been cut down 4 .

Every year, Veronese’s mill saws up about 2,000 giant trees, mostly for high-end flooring and porch decks in the United States and Europe. With obvious pride, he says that he takes only “sustainably harvested” wood. The huge trunks, stacked by the score in a yard, come from state-regulated logging operations that practise selective logging, he says, where only large trees are cut, leaving the remaining trees to grow and fill gaps in the canopy. And he says that his company follows the government’s rules for selective logging, which require firms to take steps to reduce their impact.

But many ecologists say that the selective logging permitted by the Forest Code is often not sustainable. That’s because the trees that are removed are generally slow-growing species with dense wood, whereas the species that grow back have less-dense wood, so they absorb less carbon in the same space. And few companies follow the requirements for selective logging , such as limiting road construction or the number of trees cut. “About 90% of selective logging in the Amazon is estimated as illegal, and therefore doesn’t follow any of these procedures,” says Berenguer.

A sawmill processes logs from the rainforest on the outskirts of Santarém.

Carbon counting

It takes patience and perseverance to monitor the Amazon for long periods. Berenguer and her team have been measuring 6,000 trees in the Tapajós National Forest every three months since 2015. From this, they estimate changes in the amount of biomass in the forest, and how much carbon is stored there 5 .

Censuses such as these, and atmospheric measurements such as Gatti’s, are two common techniques climate scientists use to study the uptake and release of carbon. Each has strengths and drawbacks.

The censuses directly measure the amount of carbon (in the form of wood) in a forest. If paired with measurements of debris on the ground and CO 2 released from soil, they can also take account of decay. But censuses look only at a limited number of sites. Atmospheric measurements can assess the combined impact of changes in forests at regional and even continental scales. But it’s hard to decipher the cause of any changes they show.

In 2010, Berenguer began monitoring more than 20 plots in and around the Tapajós forest. Her goal was to compare the carbon uptake of primary forest with that of jungle degraded by selective logging — legal and otherwise. But in 2015, an unprecedented heat wave and drought hit the eastern Amazon.

Eight of Berenguer’s plots were burnt, killing hundreds of trees that she’d measured at least twice. She recalls the day in 2015 that she visited a recently scorched plot. Her assistant, Gilson Oliveira, had run ahead. “And he just started screaming, ‘Oh tree number 71 is dead. Tree number 114 is burning,’” Her equipment was destroyed. Some favourite trees had died. “I just collapsed crying; just sat down in the ashes.”

Under normal conditions, the Amazon forest is almost fireproof. It’s too wet to burn. But by the time this long dry season ended, fires had scorched one million hectares of primary forest in the eastern Amazon, an area the size of Lebanon, killing an estimated 2.5 billion trees and producing as much CO 2 as Brazil releases from burning fossil fuels in a year 5 . Some of Berenguer’s research was, literally, reduced to ashes. Still, she saw the chance to study a problem that is expected to become increasingly common: the combined effect of multiple issues, such as severe drought, fires and human degradation caused by selective logging and clear-cutting.

A patch of former rainforest in the Munduruku territory has been cleared of trees and will be burnt before it is planted. The impacts and fires spread into the rainforest beyond the edge of the field.

On a tour of where Berenguer’s team works in the Tapajós forest, her field director, Marcos Alves, takes us to a site that burnt in 2015. Not long before the fire, illegal loggers removed the biggest, most economically valuable trees. The forest has grown back with plenty of vegetation, including some fast-growing species that are already as thick as telephone poles. But there are none of the giants that can be found elsewhere in the forest.

Alves and Oliveira take Gatti and me to a site three kilometres up the highway that has never been selectively logged or clear cut, and which escaped the 2015 fires. It’s dimmer here because the high canopy is so thick. And it’s noticeably cooler: not only do the trees block sunlight, but they also transpire vast quantities of water, which chills the air.

Gatti marvels at the size of a Brazil-nut tree ( Bertholletia excelsa ) that forms part of the canopy. “It’s amazing! How much water this tree puts into the air.”

Luciana Gatti stands between the buttresses of a giant samauma tree ( Ceiba pentandra ), which she often visits on trips to the eastern Amazon.

In 2021, Berenguer and a team of co-authors from Brazil and Europe published a study 5 of carbon uptake and tree mortality in her plots during the first three years after the 2015–16 burning. They compared plots that had been selectively logged or had burnt in the years before 2015–16, with ones that had not been logged or burnt. The study found that more trees died in degraded plots.

Although plots that weren’t degraded fared the best in her study, Berenguer says that there is no such thing as “pristine forest” any more. Climate change has warmed the entire Amazon forest by 1 °C in the past 60 years. The eastern Amazon has warmed even more.

Amazon rainfall has not changed appreciably, when averaged over the year. But the dry season, when rain is needed most, is becoming longer, especially in the northeastern Amazon, where dry-season rainfall decreased by 34% between 1979 and 2018 1 . In the southeastern Amazon, the season now lasts about 4 weeks longer than it did 40 years ago, putting stress on trees, especially the big ones. Still, Berenguer says that, so far, the measurable effects of climate change on the forest are relatively subtle compared with those of direct human impacts such as logging.

Fading forests

David Lapola, an Earth-system modeller at Brazil’s University of Campinas, says that deforestation alone can’t explain why the Amazon carbon sink has weakened — and has reversed in the southeast. He and more than 30 colleagues, including Gatti and Berenguer, published an analysis this year noting that carbon emissions resulting from degradation equal — or exceed — those from clear-cutting deforestation 3 .

Widespread threats

The area of intact Amazon forest that has been degraded by different forces exceeds the area that has been deforested by clear-cutting. Three main drivers of degradation are fires, selective timber extraction and edge effects that harm the forest near areas that have been cleared or burnt. Severe droughts can also cause degradation.

5.5% of total remaining Amazon forest degraded

Fire, edge effects

and timber extraction

Deforestation

Forest degradation

2001–18 (thousand km 2 )

Number of severe

Area affected by selective timber

Extent of edge effects

(km 2 , log scale)

extraction (km 2 , log scale)

droughts 2001–18

Source: Ref. 3

Area affected by

selective timber

5.5% of total

remaining Amazon forest degraded

Number of severe droughts 2001–18

Area burnt (km 2 , log scale)

Extent of edge effects (km 2 , log scale)

What’s more, even intact forest with no obvious local human impacts is accumulating less carbon than it used to, as seen in some tree-census studies. A 2015 analysis 6 of 321 plots of Amazon primary forest with no overt human impacts reported “a long-term decreasing trend of carbon accumulation”. A similar study 7 published in 2020 reported the same things in the Congo Basin forest — the world’s second-largest tropical jungle.

That’s a change from previous decades, when censuses indicated that such primary forest in the Amazon was storing more carbon. There is no consensus explanation for these slowdowns, or why primary forest was accumulating carbon. But many researchers suspect that the carbon gains in previous decades stem from the influence of extra CO 2 in the atmosphere, which can stimulate the growth of plants. In some studies that expose large forest plots to elevated CO 2 , known as free-air carbon enrichment (FACE) experiments, researchers have measured gains in biomass. But this effect lasted only a few years in one experiment 8 , and other studies have not yet determined whether the gains are temporary.

All of the forest FACE experiments have so far been conducted in temperate regions, however. And many scientists suspect that tropical forests — and the Amazon, in particular — might follow different rules. The first tropical-forest FACE experiment is finally under construction, 50 kilometres north of Manaus. Nobre says that it could help to predict whether continued increases in CO 2 will benefit the Amazon.

For several decades, Nobre and his students have used computer models to forecast how climate change and deforestation will affect the Amazon. The research grew, in part, from work in the 1970s showing that the Amazon forest itself helps to create the conditions that nourish it 9 . Moisture blowing in from the Atlantic falls as rain in the eastern Amazon and is then transpired and blown farther west. It recycles several times before reaching the Andes. A smaller or seriously degraded forest would recycle less water, and eventually might not be able to support the lush, humid forest.

In their 2016 study 2 , Nobre and several colleagues estimated the Amazon would reach a tipping point if the planet warms by more than 2.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures and if 20–25% of the Amazon is deforested. The planet is on track to reach 2.5 °C of warming by 2100, according to a report released by the United Nations last October .

Nobre now wonders whether his earlier study was too conservative. “What Luciana Gatti’s paper shows is that this whole area in the southern Amazon is becoming a carbon source.” He is convinced that, although the Amazon is not at the tipping point yet, it might be soon.

Susan Trumbore, director of the Max Planck Institute of Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, is not a fan of using the term tipping point, a phrase with no precise definition, to discuss the Amazon. But she says that the forest’s future is in question. “We all think of a tipping point as it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen fast. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a gradual alteration of the ecosystem that we know is coming with climate change,” she says. Regardless of whether the change will be fast or slow, Trumbore agrees with the majority of scientists who study the Amazon that it is facing serious challenges that might have global ramifications.

Luciana Gatti climbs a tower that rises above the canopy in the rainforest.

Some of those challenges are directly linked to politics in the region. On 23 August, Gatti and her colleagues reported that assaults on the Amazon — including deforestation, burning and degradation — had increased dramatically in 2019 and 2020 as a result of declines in law enforcement. And that doubled the carbon emissions from the region 10 .

The fate of the Amazon is on Gatti’s mind as she climbs a lattice tower in the Tapajós forest — one of the landmarks her pilots fly over as they collect air samples. The metal structure rattles and creaks as she ascends. On the deck, 15 storeys above the ground, she gazes at the forest spreading in all directions out to the horizon. It looks unblemished. But she says that it is suffering.

“We are killing this ecosystem directly and indirectly,” she says, choking up. She wipes a tear from her eye. “This is what scares me terribly and why it’s affecting me so much when I come here. I’m observing the forest dying.”

Trees in the rainforest pump tremendous amounts of water vapour into the atmosphere through the process of evapotranspiration. Cleared land releases much less moisture, drying out nearby areas of the forest.

Daniel Grossman is a freelance reporter in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Mariana Lenharo contributed translations.

• Author: Daniel Grossman
• Photographer: Dado Galdieri
• Videographer: Patrick Vanier
• Media editor: Amelia Hennighausen
• Subeditor: Anne Haggart
• Art editor: Chris Ryan
• Editor: Richard Monastersky
• Gatti, L. V. et al. Nature 595 , 388–393 (2021).
• Nobre, C. A. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113 , 10759–10768 (2016).
• Lapola, D. M. et al. Science 379 , eabp8622 (2023).
• Griffiths, P., Jakimow, B. & Hostert, P. Remote Sens. Environ. 216 , 497–513 (2018).
• Berenguer, E. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118 , e2019377118 (2021).
• Brienen, R. J. W. et al. Nature 519 , 344–348 (2015).
• Hubau, W. et al. Nature 579 , 80–87 (2020).
• Norby R. J., Warren, J. M., Iversen, C. M., Medlyn, B. E. & McMurtrie, R. E. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107 , 19368–19373 (2010).
• Salati, E., Dall’Olio, A., Matsui, E. & Gat, J. R. Water Resour. Res. 15 , 1250–1258 (1979).
• Gatti, L. V. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06390-0 (2023).

Correction: A photo caption in an earlier version of this feature erroneously described a farmer as preparing a field near Santarém for planting. In fact, the field was being harvested.

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How to tackle the global deforestation crisis

Imagine if France, Germany, and Spain were completely blanketed in forests — and then all those trees were quickly chopped down. That’s nearly the amount of deforestation that occurred globally between 2001 and 2020, with profound consequences.

Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change, producing between 6 and 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2009 study. Meanwhile, because trees also absorb carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere, they help keep the Earth cooler. And climate change aside, forests protect biodiversity.

“Climate change and biodiversity make this a global problem, not a local problem,” says MIT economist Ben Olken. “Deciding to cut down trees or not has huge implications for the world.”

But deforestation is often financially profitable, so it continues at a rapid rate. Researchers can now measure this trend closely: In the last quarter-century, satellite-based technology has led to a paradigm change in charting deforestation. New deforestation datasets, based on the Landsat satellites, for instance, track forest change since 2000 with resolution at 30 meters, while many other products now offer frequent imaging at close resolution.

“Part of this revolution in measurement is accuracy, and the other part is coverage,” says Clare Balboni, an assistant professor of economics at the London School of Economics (LSE). “On-site observation is very expensive and logistically challenging, and you’re talking about case studies. These satellite-based data sets just open up opportunities to see deforestation at scale, systematically, across the globe.”

Balboni and Olken have now helped write a new paper providing a road map for thinking about this crisis. The open-access article, “ The Economics of Tropical Deforestation ,” appears this month in the Annual Review of Economics . The co-authors are Balboni, a former MIT faculty member; Aaron Berman, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Economics; Robin Burgess, an LSE professor; and Olken, MIT’s Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carlton Professor of Microeconomics. Balboni and Olken have also conducted primary research in this area, along with Burgess.

So, how can the world tackle deforestation? It starts with understanding the problem.

Replacing forests with farms

Several decades ago, some thinkers, including the famous MIT economist Paul Samuelson in the 1970s, built models to study forests as a renewable resource; Samuelson calculated the “maximum sustained yield” at which a forest could be cleared while being regrown. These frameworks were designed to think about tree farms or the U.S. national forest system, where a fraction of trees would be cut each year, and then new trees would be grown over time to take their place.

But deforestation today, particularly in tropical areas, often looks very different, and forest regeneration is not common.

Indeed, as Balboni and Olken emphasize, deforestation is now rampant partly because the profits from chopping down trees come not just from timber, but from replacing forests with agriculture. In Brazil, deforestation has increased along with agricultural prices; in Indonesia, clearing trees accelerated as the global price of palm oil went up, leading companies to replace forests with palm tree orchards.

All this tree-clearing creates a familiar situation: The globally shared costs of climate change from deforestation are “externalities,” as economists say, imposed on everyone else by the people removing forest land. It is akin to a company that pollutes into a river, affecting the water quality of residents.

“Economics has changed the way it thinks about this over the last 50 years, and two things are central,” Olken says. “The relevance of global externalities is very important, and the conceptualization of alternate land uses is very important.” This also means traditional forest-management guidance about regrowth is not enough. With the economic dynamics in mind, which policies might work, and why?

The search for solutions

As Balboni and Olken note, economists often recommend “Pigouvian” taxes (named after the British economist Arthur Pigou) in these cases, levied against people imposing externalities on others. And yet, it can be hard to identify who is doing the deforesting.

Instead of taxing people for clearing forests, governments can pay people to keep forests intact. The UN uses Payments for Environmental Services (PES) as part of its REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) program. However, it is similarly tough to identify the optimal landowners to subsidize, and these payments may not match the quick cash-in of deforestation. A 2017 study in Uganda showed PES reduced deforestation somewhat; a 2022 study in Indonesia found no reduction; another 2022 study, in Brazil, showed again that some forest protection resulted.

“There’s mixed evidence from many of these [studies],” Balboni says. These policies, she notes, must reach people who would otherwise clear forests, and a key question is, “How can we assess their success compared to what would have happened anyway?”

Some places have tried cash transfer programs for larger populations. In Indonesia, a 2020 study found such subsidies reduced deforestation near villages by 30 percent. But in Mexico, a similar program meant more people could afford milk and meat, again creating demand for more agriculture and thus leading to more forest-clearing.

At this point, it might seem that laws simply banning deforestation in key areas would work best — indeed, about 16 percent of the world’s land overall is protected in some way. Yet the dynamics of protection are tricky. Even with protected areas in place, there is still “leakage” of deforestation into other regions. 

Still more approaches exist, including “nonstate agreements,” such as the Amazon Soy Moratorium in Brazil, in which grain traders pledged not to buy soy from deforested lands, and reduced deforestation without “leakage.”

Also, intriguingly, a 2008 policy change in the Brazilian Amazon made agricultural credit harder to obtain by requiring recipients to comply with environmental and land registration rules. The result? Deforestation dropped by up to 60 percent over nearly a decade. 

Politics and pulp

Overall, Balboni and Olken observe, beyond “externalities,” two major challenges exist. One, it is often unclear who holds property rights in forests. In these circumstances, deforestation seems to increase. Two, deforestation is subject to political battles.

For instance, as economist Bard Harstad of Stanford University has observed, environmental lobbying is asymmetric. Balboni and Olken write: “The conservationist lobby must pay the government in perpetuity … while the deforestation-oriented lobby need pay only once to deforest in the present.” And political instability leads to more deforestation because “the current administration places lower value on future conservation payments.”

Even so, national political measures can work. In the Amazon from 2001 to 2005, Brazilian deforestation rates were three to four times higher than on similar land across the border, but that imbalance vanished once the country passed conservation measures in 2006. However, deforestation ramped up again after a 2014 change in government. Looking at particular monitoring approaches, a study of Brazil’s satellite-based Real-Time System for Detection of Deforestation (DETER), launched in 2004, suggests that a 50 percent annual increase in its use in municipalities created a 25 percent reduction in deforestation from 2006 to 2016.

How precisely politics matters may depend on the context. In a 2021 paper, Balboni and Olken (with three colleagues) found that deforestation actually decreased around elections in Indonesia. Conversely, in Brazil, one study found that deforestation rates were 8 to 10 percent higher where mayors were running for re-election between 2002 and 2012, suggesting incumbents had deforestation industry support.

“The research there is aiming to understand what the political economy drivers are,” Olken says, “with the idea that if you understand those things, reform in those countries is more likely.”

Looking ahead, Balboni and Olken also suggest that new research estimating the value of intact forest land intact could influence public debates. And while many scholars have studied deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia, fewer have examined the Democratic Republic of Congo, another deforestation leader, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Deforestation is an ongoing crisis. But thanks to satellites and many recent studies, experts know vastly more about the problem than they did a decade or two ago, and with an economics toolkit, can evaluate the incentives and dynamics at play.

“To the extent that there’s ambuiguity across different contexts with different findings, part of the point of our review piece is to draw out common themes — the important considerations in determining which policy levers can [work] in different circumstances,” Balboni says. “That’s a fast-evolving area. We don’t have all the answers, but part of the process is bringing together growing evidence about [everything] that affects how successful those choices can be.”

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.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

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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‘In 10 years, we might not have forests’: DRC struggles to halt charcoal trade – a photo essay

Projects involving the Batwa and other marginalised communities offer alternative fuel and income, but can only ever be a small part of a wider drive to stop deforestation

E very few seconds a handful of reddish clay is scraped out of a bucket, rolled briskly into a ball, coated in charcoal dust and left in the sun to dry. For the past three years, Nzigire Ntavuna, 39, has been making these balls on the outskirts of Kahuzi-Biega national park, in the rainforest in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , to burn as fuel. The little briquettes represent a tiny glimmer of hope here, at the centre of a multilayered threat to this forest and the people who live in it.

Clockwise from top left: Biologist Cédric Muliri shows a fuel ball and soap made by villagers in Chibuga as an alternative income to charcoal; clay balls dry on the floor; Nzigire Ntavuna at her home in Chibuga

Ntavuna lives about 2 miles (4km) outside the park, in Chibuga village. The Batwa people have lived in the region for millennia. Since the 1970s, they have been caught up in a cycle of violence in the forests, which is home to the endangered Grauer’s, or eastern lowland, gorilla. The tensions deepened in recent weeks after a German-funded investigation into alleged massacres in the park was accused of covering up accounts of rapes and killings of Batwa people , formerly known as Pygmies, by park rangers.

The rainforest of the Congo River basin covers 178m hectares (440m acres) across six countries . It absorbs about 4% of global annual carbon emissions, sustains rainfall as far away as Egypt, and is home to 80 million people – and a vast spectrum of rare animals, insects and flora. Its preservation is deemed key in the fight against global heating .

Kahuzi-Biega national park showing, from top left, mountains; a silverback Grauer’s gorilla; members of the Batwa community; and a Batwa man making charcoal

But DRC has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation, losing 490,000 hectares (1.2m acres) of primary rainforest in 2020 , according to Global Forest Watch. Unlike in the Amazon, where industrial-scale logging is mostly responsible, in DRC small-scale charcoal production and slash and burn agriculture drive deforestation; about 90% of forest loss between 2000 and 2014 was due to smallholder agriculture, according to a 2018 report in Science Advances .

At Cop26 in Glasgow, more than 100 leaders pledged to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030 and committed $1.5bn (£1.2bn) for the Congo Basin, with $500m earmarked for the first five years. After signing the deal , DRC’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, said food security and action on the climate crisis would be delivered “through sustainable agriculture, primarily in the savannahs”. But while plans are being made to promote community forestry , there are concerns that efforts to stop logging are not going to plan , with DRC’s first reporting target being missed. Meanwhile, the demand for charcoal remains high.

A charcoal market near the edge of the Kahuzi-Biega national park

In Kahuzi-Biega national park, created by Belgian colonialists in 1937, earth is heaped over smouldering tree branches to produce charcoal – turning the forest into stumps. Charcoal burners, transporters and sellers bribe underpaid Congolese military, tasked with policing the trade. In Bukavu city, on the banks of Lake Kivu bordering Rwanda, sacks are sold at a huge markup. With gas prices high and limited electric grid power, charcoal is big business, with 90% of DRC’s population using it to cook daily. One study revealed that the capital, Kinshasa, receives 4.8m cubic metres of fuelwood and charcoal a year.

About 6,000 Batwa, hunter-gatherers who play an integral role in conserving the forests, were coerced off their ancestral lands in 1975 as the national park was expanded. Marginalised and displaced, and with little means of making a living, some Batwa returned in 2018, cutting down trees for charcoal and subsistence farming. As well as being subject to alleged killings and sexual violence by rangers and military , the Batwa are at the mercy of the militias operating in the park and controlling illegal mining.

Biologist Cédric Muliri (in the brown cap) and friends talk to members of the Batwa community near the edge of Kahuzi-Biega national park

In Chibuga and two nearby villages, Batwa have been engaged in a scheme designed to give them an alternative income and integrate them into the wider community. Biologist Cédric Muliri, 25, has been working with humanitarian organisation Objectif Brousse since 2019, teaching women to produce and sell soap, cooking stoves and honey, alongside making 1,000 fuel balls a day, selling them at $1 for 20.

The fuel balls burn 70% more efficiently than charcoal, cutting the price of fuel by a third and reducing deforestation. The scheme is extended to widows of rangers who have been killed in conflict with Batwa or armed groups, with a view to building peaceful relations between communities.

“It’s economic and ecological – now they won’t need to go into the park and cut down trees and kill animals,” says Muliri, who graduated from Bukavu University and is pursuing a career in community integration and the protection of south Kivu’s environment. He believes taking care of DRC’s poor people will safeguard the forest, and wants to see more projects like this, estimating that if 1,000 women are involved, deforestation could be reduced in the park by 25–30%.

Chibuga villagers listen to the radio while making clay balls to sell as fuel

But there have been difficulties in transporting the balls to Bukavu, where they can fetch double the price and offer an alternative to the illegal charcoal market run by criminal gangs. “We need investment,” Muliri says.

Further north, 56% of charcoal used in the city of Goma is produced illegally in Virunga national park. Here the World Wildlife Fund in DRC is supporting production of thousands of energy-efficient charcoal stoves and family biogas generators, as well as trying to restore forests. WWF says it has planted about 20 million fast-growing trees since 2007 for charcoal and carpentry, but this has reduced deforestation rates in Virunga by just 2.2%.

Powerful officials have interests in the charcoal trade continuing in DRC, a country battered by brutal colonisation resulting in decades of conflict, and corrupt politicians who have used its mineral wealth as personal piggy banks.

“If we don’t address this issue, in 10 years plus we will not talk about forests,” says Thierry Lusenge, sustainable energy manager at WWF-DRC. “It will be coffee plantations, cocoa plantations, palm … but no forest.”

Charcoal is transported to cities such as Bakuva and Goma in North Kivu, where more than half is produced illegally in Virunga national park

Halting deforestation in DRC is a “very, very tough ask and would cost a lot of money and investment”, says Simon Lewis , professor of global change science at University College London and the University of Leeds. There is a “poverty of ambition”, and stoves and plantations won’t cut it, Lewis says, believing the solution is solar energy feeding an electricity grid for DRC’s cites.

President Tshisekedi launched an ambitious solar project in Kinshasa and Virunga in 2020 and has been building hydroelectric stations . But the role of rich countries cannot be underestimated – exports of gold and the rare minerals that go into smartphones and electric car batteries to countries including Britain drive “deforestation and habitat destruction”, according to Mike Barrett of WWF-UK, who said the UK should “play its part” by reducing its global environmental footprint by 75% by 2030.

Back in Chibuga, three clay balls glow under a pot of bean stew. Muliri admits these are not a “solution by themselves” but is determined to do everything in his power to protect the land where he grew up. As they chat, Ntavuna says to Muliri: “It’s in our blood to protect the forests, even though this government doesn’t think of us like that.”

A man from the Batwa community walks on felled trees in deforested land on the edge of Kahuzi-Biega national park

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Home » Insights » Deforestation vs. Forest Degradation—What Is the Difference and Why Does It Matter?

Deforestation vs. Forest Degradation—What Is the Difference and Why Does It Matter?

Filed Under: Insights   |  Tagged: Deforestation Last updated April 23, 2024

You can’t solve a problem that you don’t understand. Everyone knows, for instance, that “deforestation” and “forest degradation” present massive threats to people and nature, but what exactly do these terms mean? And why do they matter?

First, we must establish what constitutes a forest. Are we talking only about untouched forests filled with native tree species? What about agroforestry systems, like shaded Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee farms, which have a significant amount of tree cover? Do tree plantations count? To explain the different concepts, we turned to Emmanuelle Bérenger, the forest lead for the Rainforest Alliance’s global programs.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees taller than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ.” Notably, the FAO’s definition includes both natural forests and plantation forests.

Deforestation

The most commonly accepted global definition of deforestation also comes from the FAO: the conversion of forest to other land use, whether this conversion is human-induced or not. But for the Rainforest Alliance, deforestation also includes turning natural forests into tree plantations. We view the result of severe and sustained degradation as deforestation, too.

Forest degradation

Until 2015, the FAO defined forest degradation as forest ecosystems that have lost their capacity to provide important goods and services to people (like watershed protection) and nature (like wildlife habitat). Since 2020, however, each country gets to decide what a degraded forest means within its own landscapes, and this is where things get complicated.

Defining forest degradation is tough because it’s incremental and can remain invisible for a long time—as when illegal hunting empties a forest of its wildlife. “Like us, forests can be sick and unhealthy, or thriving and productive,” Bérenger said. “Forest quality matters as much as quantity.”

How deforestation and forest degradation are measured

Thanks to satellite imagery, it’s relatively easy to assess deforestation in a particular area, by comparing current images of a location to those snapped at an earlier date. Forest degradation—which can include loss of carbon storage and soil stability—is much harder to assess, monitor, and regulate. “Forests are more than just trees. If there are roads, if forest patches are not connected, that can have a large impact on biodiversity and the way an ecosystem functions.” Therefore, Bérenger said, many factors must be considered.

Why forest degradation matters

Here’s one stark example of why it matters: “Over the past 10 years, research in the Brazilian Amazon has shown that forest degradation—caused by forest fragmentation, unsustainable forestry, and fires that damaged trees—generated three times more carbon emissions than deforestation,” Bérenger said.

If you compare two similarly sized tracts of forests, the deforested tract will generate more emissions than the degraded one. But forest degradation tends to occur on a much larger scale.  

The human element

A quarter of the world’s forests are managed by people who rely on their natural resources to survive. Both deforestation and forest degradation can take a terrible toll on these communities.

That’s why the Rainforest Alliance has long collaborated with rural communities to build businesses that allow them to make a living from the forest while protecting it. The community-run concessions we partner with in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve have done an even better job of keeping their forests healthy and intact than neighboring areas zoned for strict protection.

Europe’s pioneering new law

The Rainforest Alliance partners with farm and forest communities all over the world to protect forests. As consumers we can all do our part by buying foods, beverages, and timber items that are certified, either by the Rainforest Alliance or the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

But arguably, it’s companies that have the most power—and responsibility—to protect forests. The European Union is now putting the onus on big business with a new law that forces companies to eliminate deforestation and forest degradation from their supply chains.

Set to take effect in December 2024, the EU’s regulation on deforestation-free products (known as the EUDR) states that companies can only sell products in the EU, or export products made there, if they are deforestation-free and have been legally produced. The new law applies to wood, palm oil, soy, coffee, cocoa, rubber, and beef as well as most of the goods derived from these commodities. Thanks to the lobbying efforts of a coalition of NGOs, including the Rainforest Alliance, the EUDR addresses the impacts of forest degradation as well—specifically, the conversion of natural forests to tree plantations, or into a bush-type forest. The law prohibits the sale of any products originating in forests that have been transformed into plantations after December 31st, 2020.

The path forward

Until now, the terms severe degradation and deforestation have been used interchangeably, Bérenger said, but the EUDR represents the first time that an actionable definition of degradation has been sought and applied—and tied to a corresponding sanction. This landmark law paves the way for more clarity and action on forest degradation.

Ultimately, the key to keeping forests healthy and thriving lies in exactly the kind of work the Rainforest Alliance has been doing for decades. (In fact, the requirements of the EUDR closely align with the requirements of our certification program.) With more governments and companies getting on board with our vision, we’re even better equipped to create a world where people and nature thrive in harmony.

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• Deforestation Essay for Students in English

Essay on Deforestation

Deforestation is a removal or clearing of trees and forest which is converted into use for human, like for agricultural use, making houses, for commercial purpose and other development. About 31% of earth’s land surface is covered by forest, just over 4 billion hectares area and about 71.22 million hectares area of India’s total land is covered by forest. Deforestation is more extreme in the tropical and subtropical forests. These areas are converted into economical uses. The total area of tropical rain forest on Earth is about 16 million square kilometres but because of deforestation, only 6.2 square kilometres are left. According to the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020, the global rate of net forest loss in 2010-2020 was 7 million hectares per year.

Causes of Deforestation

The primary reason for deforestation is agricultural. According to FAQ, agriculture leads to around 80% of deforest. For the survival of the livelihood, the farmer cut trees of the forest and use that land for the purpose of cultivation. Due to the increasing population, the demand of food product is also increasing, because of this large amount of land is needed for the cultivation of crops hence farmers are bounded to cut down the forest to grow crops on that land.

Apart from this, the demand for paper, match-sticks, furniture, etc. are also increasing. Therefore the wood-based industries needs a substantial amount of wood supply to make this product. Paper plays an important role in everyone life. The paper is thrown away every year like to make accounts for approximately 640 million trees. That’s why it is said that we always have to recycle paper. Wood is used as fuel, many people cut trees and burn them for the purpose to make food. Wood is also used as coal. In every house, there is a wooden door, window and many more things. These things create a very large demand for wood which results in the cause of deforestation.

Further, to gain access to these places, the construction of roads is undertaken. Trees are again cut to build roads. The expansion of cities is also responsible for the cutting of trees, this expansion of cities is directly responsible for the growing population, people of these places need houses, roads and other facilities so that they cut trees for their livelihood.

Many industries in petrochemicals release their waste into rivers, which result in soil erosion and make it unfit to grow plants and trees on these places. The oil and coal mining requires a large amount of forest land. The waste that comes out from mining pollutes the environment and affects other species.

Another reason is forest fire. Thousands of trees every year lost by a forest fire. The reason for forest fire is the hot temperature of that place and milder winter. On many places, the fire is caused because of human’s irresponsibilities. Fires, either caused by human or by nature, results in a massive amount of loss of forest covers.

We all know that the population of the world is increasing rapidly, which is also a reason behind deforestation. People cut down trees and on that place they make houses.

Effect of Deforestation

Forest are the lungs of our planet. Trees take carbon dioxide and release oxygen which is responsible for our living. Trees also provide shed to soil because of which soil remain moist. Trees also release water vapours, that’s why climate remains humid but due to the process of deforestation the climate becomes drier and hotter which make ecology difficult that leads to climate change. Also, this factor is mainly responsible for the forest fire.

Animal and plants which form flora and fauna across the world have to suffer due to the deforestation. Various animal species are lost, they loos their habitat and forced to move to a new location. It is very difficult for them to adopt new habitats. The cutting of trees is responsible for soil erosion. The fertile soil is held in place by intricate root structures of many layers of trees. Without trees, erosion often occurs and sweeps the land into nearby rivers. With the cutting of trees the soil is directly exposed to the sun which dries them dry. Deforestation is mainly responsible for floods, loss of biodiversity, food ecosystem, wildlife extinction and habitat loss.

FAQs on Deforestation Essay for Students in English

Question 1:- How Deforestation is Responsible for Land Degradation?

Answer:-Trees provide shed to soil because of which soil remain humid. Also, the fertile soil is held in place by intricate root structures of many layers of trees. When the trees are cut down then the soil becomes loose and also there is no shed for soil which results in soil erosion. So, we concluded that trees prevent soil erosion and thus land degradation.

Question 2:- What are the Causes of Deforestation?

Answer:- There are several reasons for deforestation like agriculture, logging, cattle ranching, for making furniture from wood, constriction of roads and forest fire.

Question 3:- Where is the Largest Rainforest Located in the World?

Answer:- The largest rainforest is the Amazon Basin in South America.

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!

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Deep within the lush heart of the Amazon rainforest, the relentless rhythm of chainsaws echoes through the canopy, signaling a destructive force that is rapidly altering the face of our planet. Deforestation, the large-scale clearing of forests, is a global crisis that threatens not only the delicate ecosystems that sustain life but also the very future of our world. In this blog, you will get essay writing tips for Essays on Deforestation.

Table of Content

Causes of Deforestation

Effects of deforestation, precautions and solutions, 500+ words essay on deforestation.

The underlying causes of deforestation are complex and multifaceted, driven by a combination of human activities and economic pressures. One of the primary drivers is agricultural expansion, as vast swaths of forestland are cleared to make way for crops and grazing lands. The demand for commodities such as palm oil, soybeans, and beef has fueled the rapid conversion of forests into monoculture plantations and pastures.

Another significant contributor to deforestation is illegal logging, driven by the insatiable demand for timber and the lucrative profits that can be derived from this illicit trade. Poverty and lack of economic opportunities in rural areas also play a role, as communities turn to unsustainable practices like slash-and-burn agriculture to eke out a living.

Furthermore, the construction of roads, mining operations, and infrastructure development projects often encroach upon forested areas, leading to further destruction and fragmentation of these vital ecosystems.

The consequences of deforestation are far-reaching and devastating, impacting not only the environment but also the well-being of countless species and human communities.

One of the most alarming effects of deforestation is its contribution to climate change. Forests act as carbon sinks, absorbing and storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When these forests are cleared, the stored carbon is released back into the air, exacerbating the greenhouse effect and accelerating global warming.

Deforestation also poses a grave threat to biodiversity. Forests are home to an astounding array of plant and animal species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth. As their habitats are destroyed, these species face the risk of extinction, irreversibly diminishing the planet’s rich tapestry of life.

The loss of forests has severe implications for indigenous communities and local populations who rely on these ecosystems for their livelihoods, food, and traditional practices. Deforestation disrupts the delicate balance of these communities, often leading to displacement, loss of resources, and cultural erosion.

In addition, deforestation can have far-reaching impacts on water cycles and soil stability. Without the protective canopy of trees, the land becomes more susceptible to erosion, leading to sedimentation and degradation of water sources. This, in turn, can exacerbate the risk of floods and droughts, further compounding the environmental and social challenges.

Addressing the issue of deforestation requires a multifaceted approach that involves stakeholders at all levels, from governments and international organizations to local communities and individuals.

One crucial step is the implementation of stringent laws and regulations to protect forests and promote sustainable land management practices. Governments must prioritize the enforcement of these laws and hold accountable those who engage in illegal logging or unsanctioned deforestation activities.

Furthermore, there is a pressing need to support and incentivize sustainable agriculture and forestry practices. This can include promoting agroforestry systems, which integrate trees and crops on the same land, as well as encouraging the cultivation of crops that do not require extensive land clearing.

Efforts must also be made to empower and engage local communities in conservation efforts. By recognizing the traditional knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples, and involving them in decision-making processes, we can foster a sense of ownership and stewardship over these invaluable natural resources.

On a global scale, initiatives such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) aim to provide financial incentives to developing countries that implement policies and measures to protect their forests and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

Consumer awareness and responsible consumption play a pivotal role in addressing deforestation. By making informed choices and supporting products and companies that prioritize sustainable practices, we can collectively reduce the demand for goods that contribute to deforestation.

Reforestation and restoration efforts are also critical in mitigating the impacts of deforestation. Organizations and governments must prioritize the planting of new trees and the restoration of degraded landscapes, helping to replenish the invaluable ecosystem services provided by forests.

With each resounding crash of a felled tree, the world’s forests are diminishing at an alarming rate, stripped away by the insatiable appetite of human activities. Deforestation, the large-scale clearing of forested areas, is a grave environmental crisis that demands immediate attention and action.

The primary driver behind deforestation is the expansion of agricultural land, as vast swaths of forests are cleared to make way for crops, grazing pastures, and plantations. The demand for commodities such as palm oil, soybeans, and beef has fueled this destructive process, leading to the rapid conversion of once-thriving ecosystems into monoculture landscapes.

Another significant contributor to deforestation is illegal logging, driven by the lucrative profits that can be derived from this illicit trade. Poverty and lack of economic opportunities in rural areas also compel communities to engage in unsustainable practices like slash-and-burn agriculture, further exacerbating the problem.

The consequences of deforestation are far-reaching and devastating. Forests act as essential carbon sinks, absorbing and storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When these forests are cleared, the stored carbon is released back into the air, exacerbating the greenhouse effect and accelerating global warming, which in turn contributes to more extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels.

Furthermore, deforestation poses a grave threat to biodiversity. Forests are home to an astounding array of plant and animal species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth. As their habitats are destroyed, these species face the risk of extinction, irreversibly diminishing the planet’s rich tapestry of life.

The loss of forests also has severe implications for indigenous communities and local populations who rely on these ecosystems for their livelihoods, food, and traditional practices. Deforestation disrupts the delicate balance of these communities, often leading to displacement, loss of resources, and cultural erosion.

Addressing the issue of deforestation requires a multifaceted approach that involves stakeholders at all levels. Governments must prioritize the implementation and enforcement of stringent laws and regulations to protect forests and promote sustainable land management practices. Efforts must also be made to support and incentivize sustainable agriculture and forestry practices, such as agroforestry systems that integrate trees and crops on the same land.

Moreover, consumer awareness and responsible consumption play a pivotal role in reducing the demand for goods that contribute to deforestation. By making informed choices and supporting products and companies that prioritize sustainable practices, we can collectively drive positive change.

Ultimately, the preservation of our forests is not just an environmental imperative; it is a moral obligation to safeguard the intricate web of life that sustains our planet. As we confront the realities of deforestation, we must summon a renewed sense of urgency and collective action, recognizing that the fate of our forests, and ultimately our own fate, is inextricably intertwined with the health of our planet.

Also Read: 500+ Words Essay on Air Pollution 800+ Words Essay on My Dream For Students 500+ Words Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English

Deforestation is a global crisis that demands our immediate attention and collective action. The consequences of our actions today will echo through generations to come, shaping the very future of our planet. It is our responsibility to serve as stewards of these vital ecosystems, ensuring that the majestic forests that grace our world are preserved for the benefit of all life.

By addressing the underlying drivers of deforestation, implementing sustainable land management practices, empowering local communities, and fostering global cooperation, we can begin to reverse the tide of destruction. It is a daunting task, but one that is essential for the survival of countless species, the preservation of invaluable cultural heritage, and the maintenance of the delicate balance that sustains life on Earth.

The time to act is now. Let us embrace the challenge with unwavering determination, recognizing that the fate of our forests, and ultimately our own fate, is inextricably intertwined. Together, we can forge a path towards a greener, more sustainable future, where the majestic canopies of our forests continue to flourish, providing sanctuary, sustenance, and hope for generations to come.

Essay on Deforestation- FAQs

What is deforestation in a paragraph.

Deforestation is the deliberate clearing of wooded areas. Throughout history and into the present, woods have been cleared to create way for agriculture and animal grazing, as well as to obtain wood for fuel, manufacture, and construction.

How do you write an introduction to deforestation?

Deforestation is gradually becoming one of the most serious environmental issues in the world. Humans frequently deforest for land development, roads, and railroads, as well as for economic reasons. Every year, almost eighteen million acres of forest are lost, having severe consequences.

Why deforestation is a problem?

The loss of trees and other vegetation can lead to climate change, desertification, soil erosion, less harvests, flooding, higher greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, and a variety of other issues for Indigenous people. Deforestation happens for a variety of reasons.

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Essay On Rainforest

Rainforests are integral to the environment, providing numerous benefits. Deforestation, or the loss of rainforests, can have disastrous consequences for both the environment and people.

Rainforests play a vital role in the global environment. They help regulate the Earth’s climate and are home to an estimated 50% of all life on Earth. Rainforests also provide a number of resources that are essential to humans, including food, medicine, and timber.

Deforestation is a major problem in many parts of the world. It is estimated that approximately 1/3 of all rainforest has been lost due to deforestation. Deforestation can have devastating effects on the environment. It contributes to climate change, increases greenhouse gas emissions, and destroys vital habitats.

Deforestation also has serious consequences for people. It can lead to soil erosion, water shortages, and loss of biodiversity. Deforestation also increases the risk of wildfires and landslides.

It is essential that we take steps to protect our rainforests. We must work to prevent deforestation and promote sustainable practices that will preserve these vital ecosystems.

The rainforests play an essential role in the world for a variety of reasons, some of which are quite basic. One major benefit is that plants in the jungle convert CO2 into clean air, allowing us to combat pollution. In addition, because the rainforests absorb carbon dioxide, they assist to prevent global warming. The trees of the rainforest store carbon dioxide in their roots, stems, branches and leaves. Rainforest animals and plants contribute food, fuel wood, shelter and employment as well as medicines to mankind.

Rainforests are home to half the world’s species of plants, animals, and insects. The Rainforest is disappearing at an alarming rate. Every day, thousands of acres of rainforest are being destroyed by loggers, miners, and farmers. The loss of the rainforest will have a devastating effect on the environment and on the people who live there.

Deforestation is the conversion of a forested area to land that is not forested. Deforestation occurs for many reasons: trees are cut down to be used as fuel or lumber, to make room for pastures or crops, or to allow for urbanization. Deforestation has many negative consequences. It contributes to global warming, destroys animal habitat, and decreases biodiversity. Additionally, deforestation can lead to soil erosion, which can cause rivers and lakes to become polluted.

Deforestation also decreases the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed by trees. This can lead to an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Rainforests are a vital part of our planet’s ecosystem, and their destruction will have devastating consequences for the environment and for humanity. We must work together to stop deforestation and protect the rainforests.

“If you clear a forest, it provides greater economic wealth in every respect than if it were unharmed. Deforestation, on the other hand, continues at an alarming rate. ‘The National Forest Association of Forest Industries (1996) notes that there are approximately 4 billion hectares of forest on Earth, with about 25% located in tropical rainforest.’

The rainforest is home to a rich variety of plants and animals, many of which are unique to the region. Many of these species have incredible medicinal properties; however, there is only one known cure for some ailments, which come from species in the rainforest.

Rainforest also play a huge role in stabilizing the climate and preventing erosion. They are an important carbon sink, soaking up billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. Rainforests also produce nearly 20% of the world’s oxygen supply. Despite all these benefits, rainforest are being destroyed at a rate of about 13 million hectares per year – that is, an area the size of Costa Rica or Panama is cleared every year (Tropical Rainforest Coalition, 1996).

The main causes for this destruction are conversion to agricultural land, logging, and development. The leading countries responsible for deforestation are Brazil, Indonesia, China, India and the United States. Agricultural expansion is the primary driver of deforestation in Latin America, where more than 70 percent of the original forest has already been cleared.

In Southeast Asia, industrial logging is the main cause of deforestation. In China and India, the primary drivers are infrastructure development and energy production, respectively. And in the United States, it’s mostly due to residential and commercial development ( Rainforest Relief, n.d.).

The rainforests diversity is demonstrated by the fact that in Kenya’s Kakamega Forest, a single hectare may contain between 100 and 150 distinct tree species, whereas a hectare of North American forest might only contain 10.

Rainforests play a significant role in stabilizing the Earth’s climate. “Tropical forests are responsible for approximately 28% of the world’s carbon uptake, making them one of the most important natural mechanisms for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

Despite their importance, rainforests around the world are under threat from deforestation. Deforestation is defined as “the conversion of a forested area to land that is not forested. ” (Deforestation, n. d. ) Rainforest deforestation can occur through natural causes such as wildfires, but more often it is the result of human activity, such as logging, agriculture, and mining. Deforestation not only destroys the rainforest, it also releases stored carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.

The world’s rainforests are disappearing at an alarming rate. “Every year, 13 million hectares of forest – an area the size of Greece – are lost. That is equivalent to 48 football fields every minute” (Rainforest Facts, n. d. ). The loss of rainforests contributes significantly to global warming and climate change. Rainforests are one of the Earth’s most important natural resources, and it is critical that we take steps to protect them.

The bulk of the nutrients in a rainforest, which is typically 80 percent, remain in the trees and plants. The water from the forest is recirculated by evaporation. Clouds over the canopy of the forest reflect sunlight back into space, keeping temperatures inside the jungle more constant. Rainforests take a long time to grow back, but younger forests are better at removing carbon from the air than older ones. Forests that are older absorb less carbon but have larger overall quantities of carbon stored within them.

Rainforests are vital to the environment because they help to regulate climate, provide oxygen, and house a high level of biodiversity. Deforestation is the clear-cutting of trees in an area where forest once thrived. Deforestation can refer to the natural loss of trees, as well as the potential destruction of forests due to the practices of people. Deforestation has many severe consequences for global climate, human health, and environmental conservation.

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