Deforestation
Conversion of forest to non-forest for human use / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use.[1] Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests.[2] About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present.[3] This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, with half of that loss occurring in the last century.[4] Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute.[5]
The overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture.[6] More than 80% of deforestation was attributed to agriculture in 2018.[7] Forests are being converted to plantations for coffee, tea, palm oil, rice, rubber, and various other popular products.[8] Livestock ranching is another agricultural activity that drives deforestation. Further drivers are the wood industry (logging), economic development in general (for example urbanization), mining. The effects of climate change are another cause via the increased risk of wildfires.
Deforestation has resulted in habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, and aridity. Deforestation also causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations, as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record.[9] Deforestation also reduces biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing negative feedback cycles contributing to global warming. Global warming also puts increased pressure on communities who seek food security by clearing forests for agricultural use and reducing arable land more generally. Deforested regions typically incur significant other environmental effects such as adverse soil erosion and degradation into wasteland.
The resilience of human food systems and their capacity to adapt to future change is linked to biodiversity – including dryland-adapted shrub and tree species that help combat desertification, forest-dwelling insects, bats and bird species that pollinate crops, trees with extensive root systems in mountain ecosystems that prevent soil erosion, and mangrove species that provide resilience against flooding in coastal areas.[10] With climate change exacerbating the risks to food systems, the role of forests in capturing and storing carbon and mitigating climate change is important for the agricultural sector.[10]
Deforestation is defined as the conversion of forest to other land uses (regardless of whether it is human-induced).[11]
Deforestation and forest area net change are not the same: the latter is the sum of all forest losses (deforestation) and all forest gains (forest expansion) in a given period. Net change, therefore, can be positive or negative, depending on whether gains exceed losses, or vice versa.[11]
The FAO estimates that the global forest carbon stock has decreased 0.9%, and tree cover 4.2% between 1990 and 2020.[12]: 16, 52
Region | 1990 | 2020 |
---|---|---|
Europe (including Russia) | 158.7 | 172.4 |
North America | 136.6 | 140.0 |
Africa | 94.3 | 80.9 |
South and Southeast Asia combined | 45.8 | 41.5 |
Oceania | 33.4 | 33.1 |
Central America | 5.0 | 4.1 |
South America | 161.8 | 144.8 |
As of 2019 there is still disagreement about whether the global forest is shrinking or not: "While above-ground biomass carbon stocks are estimated to be declining in the tropics, they are increasing globally due to increasing stocks in temperate and boreal forest.[13]: 385
Deforestation in many countries—both naturally occurring[14] and human-induced—is an ongoing issue.[15] Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million square kilometres (890,000 sq mi) of forests around the world were cut down.[16] Deforestation and forest degradation continue to take place at alarming rates, which contributes significantly to the ongoing loss of biodiversity.[10]
Deforestation is more extreme in tropical and subtropical forests in emerging economies. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the world live in tropical forests.[18] As a result of deforestation, only 6.2 million square kilometres (2.4 million square miles) remain of the original 16 million square kilometres (6 million square miles) of tropical rainforest that formerly covered the Earth.[16] An area the size of a football pitch is cleared from the Amazon rainforest every minute, with 136 million acres (55 million hectares) of rainforest cleared for animal agriculture overall.[19] More than 3.6 million hectares of virgin tropical forest was lost in 2018.[20]
The global annual net loss of trees is estimated to be approximately 10 billion.[21][22] According to the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 the global average annual deforested land in the 2015–2020 demi-decade was 10 million hectares and the average annual forest area net loss in the 2000–2010 decade was 4.7 million hectares.[11] The world has lost 178 million ha of forest since 1990, which is an area about the size of Libya.[11]
An analysis of global deforestation patterns in 2021 showed that patterns of trade, production, and consumption drive deforestation rates in complex ways. While the location of deforestation can be mapped, it does not always match where the commodity is consumed. For example, consumption patterns in G7 countries are estimated to cause an average loss of 3.9 trees per person per year. In other words, deforestation can be directly related to imports—for example, coffee.[23][24]
Rates of deforestation
Global deforestation[27] sharply accelerated around 1852.[28][29] As of 1947, the planet had 15 million to 16 million km2 (5.8 million to 6.2 million sq mi) of mature tropical forests,[30] but by 2015, it was estimated that about half of these had been destroyed.[31][18][32] Total land coverage by tropical rainforests decreased from 14% to 6%. Much of this loss happened between 1960 and 1990, when 20% of all tropical rainforests were destroyed. At this rate, extinction of such forests is projected to occur by the mid-21st century.[33]
In the early 2000s, some scientists predicted that unless significant measures (such as seeking out and protecting old growth forests that have not been disturbed)[30] are taken on a worldwide basis, by 2030 there will only be 10% remaining,[28][32] with another 10% in a degraded condition.[28] 80% will have been lost, and with them hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable species.[28]
Estimates vary widely as to the extent of deforestation in the tropics.[34][35] In 2019, the world lost nearly 12 million hectares of tree cover. Nearly a third of that loss, 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests, areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage. This is equivalent to losing an area of primary forest the size of a football pitch every six seconds.[36][37]
Rates of change
A 2002 analysis of satellite imagery suggested that the rate of deforestation in the humid tropics (approximately 5.8 million hectares per year) was roughly 23% lower than the most commonly quoted rates.[41] A 2005 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that although the Earth's total forest area continued to decrease at about 13 million hectares per year, the global rate of deforestation had been slowing.[42][43] On the other hand, a 2005 analysis of satellite images reveals that deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is twice as fast as scientists previously estimated.[44][45]
From 2010 to 2015, worldwide forest area decreased by 3.3 million ha per year, according to FAO. During this five-year period, the biggest forest area loss occurred in the tropics, particularly in South America and Africa. Per capita forest area decline was also greatest in the tropics and subtropics but is occurring in every climatic domain (except in the temperate) as populations increase.[46]
An estimated 420 million ha of forest has been lost worldwide through deforestation since 1990, but the rate of forest loss has declined substantially. In the most recent five-year period (2015–2020), the annual rate of deforestation was estimated at 10 million ha, down from 12 million ha in 2010–2015.[11]
Africa had the largest annual rate of net forest loss in 2010–2020, at 3.9 million ha, followed by South America, at 2.6 million ha. The rate of net forest loss has increased in Africa in each of the three decades since 1990. It has declined substantially in South America, however, to about half the rate in 2010–2020 compared with 2000–2010. Asia had the highest net gain of forest area in 2010–2020, followed by Oceania and Europe. Nevertheless, both Europe and Asia recorded substantially lower rates of net gain in 2010–2020 than in 2000–2010. Oceania experienced net losses of forest area in the decades 1990–2000 and 2000–2010.[11]
Some claim that rainforests are being destroyed at an ever-quickening pace.[48] The London-based Rainforest Foundation notes that "the UN figure is based on a definition of forest as being an area with as little as 10% actual tree cover, which would therefore include areas that are actually savanna-like ecosystems and badly damaged forests".[49] Other critics of the FAO data point out that they do not distinguish between forest types,[50] and that they are based largely on reporting from forestry departments of individual countries,[51] which do not take into account unofficial activities like illegal logging.[52] Despite these uncertainties, there is agreement that destruction of rainforests remains a significant environmental problem.
The rate of net forest loss declined from 7.8 million ha per year in the decade 1990–2000 to 5.2 million ha per year in 2000–2010 and 4.7 million ha per year in 2010–2020. The rate of decline of net forest loss slowed in the most recent decade due to a reduction in the rate of forest expansion.[11]
Reforestation and afforestation
In many parts of the world, especially in East Asian countries, reforestation and afforestation are increasing the area of forested lands.[53] The amount of forest has increased in 22 of the world's 50 most forested nations. Asia as a whole gained 1 million hectares of forest between 2000 and 2005. Tropical forest in El Salvador expanded more than 20% between 1992 and 2001. Based on these trends, one study projects that global forestation will increase by 10%—an area the size of India—by 2050.[54] 36% of globally planted forest area is in East Asia - around 950,000 square kilometers. From those 87% are in China.[55]
Status by region
Rates of deforestation vary around the world. Up to 90% of West Africa's coastal rainforests have disappeared since 1900.[56] Madagascar has lost 90% of its eastern rainforests.[57][58] In South Asia, about 88% of the rainforests have been lost.[59]
Mexico, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, Laos, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, have lost large areas of their rainforest.[60][61]
Much of what remains of the world's rainforests is in the Amazon basin, where the Amazon Rainforest covers approximately 4 million square kilometres.[62] Some 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon can be attributed to cattle ranching,[63] as Brazil is the largest exporter of beef in the world.[64] The Amazon region has become one of the largest cattle ranching territories in the world.[65] The regions with the highest tropical deforestation rate between 2000 and 2005 were Central America—which lost 1.3% of its forests each year—and tropical Asia.[49] In Central America, two-thirds of lowland tropical forests have been turned into pasture since 1950 and 40% of all the rainforests have been lost in the last 40 years.[66] Brazil has lost 90–95% of its Mata Atlântica forest.[67] Deforestation in Brazil increased by 88% for the month of June 2019, as compared with the previous year.[68] However, Brazil still destroyed 1.3 million hectares in 2019.[36] Brazil is one of several countries that have declared their deforestation a national emergency.[69][70] Paraguay was losing its natural semi-humid forests in the country's western regions at a rate of 15,000 hectares at a randomly studied 2-month period in 2010.[71] In 2009, Paraguay's parliament refused to pass a law that would have stopped cutting of natural forests altogether.[72]
As of 2007, less than 50% of Haiti's forests remained.[73]
From 2015 to 2019, the rate of deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo doubled.[74] In 2021, deforestation of the Congolese rainforest increased by 5%.[75]
The World Wildlife Fund's ecoregion project catalogues habitat types throughout the world, including habitat loss such as deforestation, showing for example that even in the rich forests of parts of Canada such as the Mid-Continental Canadian forests of the prairie provinces half of the forest cover has been lost or altered.
In 2011, Conservation International listed the top 10 most endangered forests, characterized by having all lost 90% or more of their original habitat, and each harboring at least 1500 endemic plant species (species found nowhere else in the world).[76]
As of 2015[update], it is estimated that 70% of the world's forests are within one kilometer of a forest edge, where they are most prone to human interference and destruction.[77][78]
Endangered forest | Region | Remaining habitat | Predominate vegetation type | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Indo-Burma | Asia-Pacific | 5% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests | Rivers, floodplain wetlands, mangrove forests. Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, India.[79] |
New Caledonia | Asia-Pacific | 5% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests | See note for region covered.[80] |
Sundaland | Asia-Pacific | 7% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests | Western half of the Indo-Malayan archipelago including southern Borneo and Sumatra.[81] |
Philippines | Asia-Pacific | 7% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests | Forests over the entire country including 7,100 islands.[82] |
Atlantic Forest | South America | 8% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests | Forests along Brazil's Atlantic coast, extends to parts of Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.[83] |
Mountains of Southwest China | Asia-Pacific | 8% | Temperate coniferous forest | See note for region covered.[84] |
California Floristic Province | North America | 10% | Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests | See note for region covered.[85] |
Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa | Africa | 10% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests | Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia.[86] |
Madagascar & Indian Ocean Islands | Africa | 10% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests | Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, Seychelles, Comoros.[87] |
Eastern Afromontane | Africa | 11% | Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Montane grasslands and shrublands |
Forests scattered along the eastern edge of Africa, from Saudi Arabia in the north to Zimbabwe in the south.[88] |
By country
Deforestation in particular countries:
Agricultural expansion continues to be the main driver of deforestation and forest fragmentation and the associated loss of forest biodiversity.[10] Large-scale commercial agriculture (primarily cattle ranching and cultivation of soya bean and oil palm) accounted for 40 percent of tropical deforestation between 2000 and 2010, and local subsistence agriculture for another 33 percent.[10] Trees are cut down for use as building material, timber or sold as fuel (sometimes in the form of charcoal or timber), while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock and agricultural crops.
The vast majority of agricultural activity resulting in deforestation is subsidized by government tax revenue.[89] Disregard of ascribed value, lax forest management, and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that lead to large-scale deforestation.
The types of drivers vary greatly depending on the region in which they take place. The regions with the greatest amount of deforestation for livestock and row crop agriculture are Central and South America, while commodity crop deforestation was found mainly in Southeast Asia. The region with the greatest forest loss due to shifting agriculture was sub-Saharan Africa.[90]
Agriculture
The overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture.[6] Subsistence farming is responsible for 48% of deforestation; commercial agriculture is responsible for 32%; logging is responsible for 14%, and fuel wood removals make up 5%.[6]
More than 80% of deforestation was attributed to agriculture in 2018.[7] Forests are being converted to plantations for coffee, tea, palm oil, rice, rubber, and various other popular products.[8] The rising demand for certain products and global trade arrangements causes forest conversions, which ultimately leads to soil erosion.[91] The top soil oftentimes erodes after forests are cleared which leads to sediment increase in rivers and streams.
Most deforestation also occurs in tropical regions. The estimated amount of total land mass used by agriculture is around 38%.[92]
Since 1960, roughly 15% of the Amazon has been removed with the intention of replacing the land with agricultural practices.[93] It is no coincidence that Brazil has recently become the world's largest beef exporter at the same time that the Amazon rainforest is being clear cut.[94]
Another prevalent method of agricultural deforestation is slash-and-burn agriculture, which was primarily used by subsistence farmers in tropical regions but has now become increasingly less sustainable. The method does not leave land for continuous agricultural production but instead cuts and burns small plots of forest land which are then converted into agricultural zones. The farmers then exploit the nutrients in the ashes of the burned plants.[95][96] As well as, intentionally set fires can possibly lead to devastating measures when unintentionally spreading fire to more land, which can result in the destruction of the protective canopy.[97]
The repeated cycle of low yields and shortened fallow periods eventually results in less vegetation being able to grow on once burned lands and a decrease in average soil biomass.[98] In small local plots sustainability is not an issue because of longer fallow periods and lesser overall deforestation. The relatively small size of the plots allowed for no net input of CO2 to be released.[99]
Livestock ranching
Consumption and production of beef is the primary driver of deforestation in the Amazon, with around 80% of all converted land being used to rear cattle.[100][101] 91% of Amazon land deforested since 1970 has been converted to cattle ranching.[102][103]
Livestock ranching requires large portions of land to raise herds of animals and livestock crops for consumer needs. According to the World Wildlife Fund, "Extensive cattle ranching is the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country, and it accounts for 80% of current deforestation."[104]
The cattle industry is responsible for a significant amount of methane emissions since 60% of all mammals on earth are livestock cows.[105][106] Replacing forest land with pastures creates a loss of forest stock, which leads to the implication of increased greenhouse gas emissions by burning agriculture methodologies and land-use change.[107]
Wood industry
A large contributing factor to deforestation is the lumber industry. A total of almost 4 million hectares (9.9×10^6 acres) of timber,[108] or about 1.3% of all forest land, is harvested each year. In addition, the increasing demand for low-cost timber products only supports the lumber company to continue logging.[109]
Experts do not agree on whether industrial logging is an important contributor to global deforestation.[110][111] Some argue that poor people are more likely to clear forest because they have no alternatives, others that the poor lack the ability to pay for the materials and labour needed to clear forest.[110]
Economic development
Other causes of contemporary deforestation may include corruption of government institutions,[112][113][114] the inequitable distribution of wealth and power,[115] population growth[116] and overpopulation,[117][118] and urbanization.[119][120] The impact of population growth on deforestation has been contested. One study found that population increases due to high fertility rates were a primary driver of tropical deforestation in only 8% of cases.[121] In 2000 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that "the role of population dynamics in a local setting may vary from decisive to negligible", and that deforestation can result from "a combination of population pressure and stagnating economic, social and technological conditions".[116]
Globalization is often viewed as another root cause of deforestation,[122][123] though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization (new flows of labor, capital, commodities, and ideas) have promoted localized forest recovery.[124]
The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation.[125] Many important forest functions have no markets, and hence, no economic value that is readily apparent to the forests' owners or the communities that rely on forests for their well-being.[125] From the perspective of the developing world, the benefits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go primarily to richer developed nations and there is insufficient compensation for these services. Developing countries feel that some countries in the developed world, such as the United States of America, cut down their forests centuries ago and benefited economically from this deforestation, and that it is hypocritical to deny developing countries the same opportunities, i.e. that the poor should not have to bear the cost of preservation when the rich created the problem.[126]
Some commentators have noted a shift in the drivers of deforestation over the past 30 years.[127] Whereas deforestation was primarily driven by subsistence activities and government-sponsored development projects like transmigration in countries like Indonesia and colonization in Latin America, India, Java, and so on, during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, by the 1990s the majority of deforestation was caused by industrial factors, including extractive industries, large-scale cattle ranching, and extensive agriculture.[128] Since 2001, commodity-driven deforestation, which is more likely to be permanent, has accounted for about a quarter of all forest disturbance, and this loss has been concentrated in South America and Southeast Asia.[129]
As the human population grows, new homes, communities, and expansions of cities will occur, leading to an increase in roads to connect these communities. Rural roads promote economic development but also facilitate deforestation.[130] About 90% of the deforestation has occurred within 100 km of roads in most parts of the Amazon.[131]
The European Union is one of the largest importer of products made from illegal deforestation.[132][obsolete source]
Some have argued that deforestation trends may follow a Kuznets curve,[133] which if true would nonetheless fail to eliminate the risk of irreversible loss of non-economic forest values (for example, the extinction of species).[134][135]
Mining
The importance of mining as a cause of deforestation increased quickly in the beginning the 21st century, among other because of increased demand for minerals. The direct impact of mining is relatively small, but the indirect impacts are much more significant. More than a third of the earth's forests are possibly impacted, at some level and in the years 2001–2021, "755,861 km2... ...had been deforested by causes indirectly related to mining activities alongside other deforestation drivers (based on data from WWF)"[136]
Climate change
Another cause of deforestation is due to the effects of climate change: More wildfires,[138] insect outbreaks, invasive species, and more frequent extreme weather events (such as storms) are factors that increase deforestation.[139]
A study suggests that "tropical, arid and temperate forests are experiencing a significant decline in resilience, probably related to increased water limitations and climate variability" which may shift ecosystems towards critical transitions and ecosystem collapses.[137] By contrast, "boreal forests show divergent local patterns with an average increasing trend in resilience, probably benefiting from warming and CO2 fertilization, which may outweigh the adverse effects of climate change".[137] It has been proposed that a loss of resilience in forests "can be detected from the increased temporal autocorrelation (TAC) in the state of the system, reflecting a decline in recovery rates due to the critical slowing down (CSD) of system processes that occur at thresholds".[137]
23% of tree cover losses result from wildfires and climate change increase their frequency and power.[140] The rising temperatures cause massive wildfires especially in the Boreal forests. One possible effect is the change of the forest composition.[141] Deforestation can also cause forests to become more fire prone through mechanisms such as logging.[142]
Military causes
Operations in war can also cause deforestation. For example, in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, bombardment and other combat operations reduced a lush tropical landscape into "a vast field of mud, lead, decay and maggots".[143]
Deforestation can also result from the intentional tactics of military forces. Clearing forests became an element in the Russian Empire's successful conquest of the Caucasus in the mid-19th century.[144] The British (during the Malayan Emergency) and the United States (in the Korean War[145] and in the Vietnam War) used defoliants (like Agent Orange or others).[146][147][148][need quotation to verify] The destruction of forests in Vietnam War is one of the most commonly used examples of ecocide, including by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, lawyers, historians and other academics.[149][150][151]