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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Deforestation.

Deforestation is the intentional clearing of forested land.

Biology, Ecology, Conservation

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

Photograph by Esemelwe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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• 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 .

For Hungry Minds

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.

Related Topics

• DEFORESTATION
• ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
• RAINFORESTS

Climbing into the secret world of an ancient Bornean rainforest

Forests are reeling from climate change—but the future isn’t lost

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What is deforestation – and is stopping it really possible?

As world leaders prepare to commit to halting the destruction of forests, here’s everything you need to know about some of the planet’s most biodiverse places

F orests and nature are centre stage at Cop26. On the second day of the Glasgow summit, world leaders are announcing a commitment to halting and reversing deforestation. As the second largest source of greenhouse gases after energy, the land sector accounts for 25% of global emissions, with deforestation and forest degradation contributing to half of this.

But why do forests matter to the climate, and how can we halt deforestation?

What is a forest?

There are an estimated three trillion trees on Earth . Some form part of enormous forest ecosystems like the Congo rainforest, while others stand in sparsely populated landscapes such as on the edges of the Sahara desert. Of the 60,000 known tree species, nearly a third are threatened with extinction , according to a recent assessment.

Scientists cannot decide on a single definition of a forest due to disagreements over tree density, height and canopy cover. But the Food and Agriculture Organization’s version is commonly used: “Land with a tree canopy cover of more than 10% and area of more than 0.5 hectares.” Forest covered almost a third of the world’s landmass in 2020, with more than half found in just five countries: Russia, Brazil, Canada, the US and China. The taiga – also known as northern boreal forest – is the world’s largest, stretching around the northern hemisphere through Siberia, Canada and Scandinavia.

Temperate, tropical and boreal are the three main types of forest that include a great diversity of ecosystems: cloud forest, rainforest, mangrove swamps, and tropical dry forest, among many others.

Why do forests matter for the climate?

Forests are among the most biodiverse places on the planet and form an enormous carbon store, regulating the world’s weather and climate. They hold about 861 gigatons of carbon – equivalent to nearly a century’s worth of annual fossil fuel emissions at the current rate – and absorbed twice as much carbon as they emitted in the last two decades. More carbon is stored in soil (44%) than living biomass (42%), with the rest found in dead wood (8%) and forest litter (5%). Forests like the Congo basin rainforest – the world’s second largest – affect rainfall thousands of miles away around the Nile. Billions of humans rely on forests for food, building materials and shelter.

But they are being cleared at a relentless pace. About 10% of tree cover has been lost since 2000, according to Global Forest Watch. Although estimates vary, the land sector is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for around a quarter of emissions, according to the IPCC , of which deforestation is a major component. Many scientists say it will not be possible to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels without halting deforestation.

“There are two main points on forests and carbon,” says Yadvinder Malhi, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford. “Forests are a carbon store, meaning that when you deforest, you’re releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. The other thing is that intact forests have been shown to be a carbon sink, absorbing carbon over time. And if our sink is disappearing, you’re losing the service that the biosphere provides – an assumption that such a sink will continue is built into almost all of our climate model scenarios for this century.”

Do all forests store the same amount of carbon?

No. Old-growth forests that are free from human industrial interference and pollution are especially important for the climate and biodiversity. They are called primary forests and are ancient, carbon-dense ecosystems bursting with life such as parts of the Amazon, the Białowieża Forest in Poland and Papua New Guinea. With some of the largest trees and the biggest variety of life, conservationists place extra emphasis on their protection from logging, wildfires and human industry as they only account for one-third of the planet’s forest cover . Young or recovering forests store much less carbon and can sometimes take several years before they become effective sinks.

Tropical rainforests, mangrove and peat swamp forests – such as those found in south-east Asia – play a disproportionally important role in regulating the climate due to the amount of carbon they store, their cooling effect and the protection they provide from flooding. Boreal forests, which are covered in snow for large parts of the year, reflect more heat back into the atmosphere and have a net warming effect on the climate. Agricultural tree plantations with very few species are much less carbon-dense and support much less life.

What is deforestation?

Deforestation is the human-driven conversion to another land use of a forest, such as cattle ranching or soya bean production, that is often clearcut with machinery then burnt. It is not the same as logging: trees can be selectively taken out of a standing forest. Deforestation has gone hand in hand with human development for centuries. Nearly all the temperate rainforest that once covered large parts of the British Isles was cleared for agriculture, roads and human settlements, for example.

As well as being a major source of carbon emissions, land use change is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, which scientists warn is driving the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. From space, deforestation often follows a “fishbone pattern” where land is cleared along the edges of roads and rivers. Over time, the fishbone fills in as more of the forest is cleared. On a large scale, the process can become self-perpetuating, such as the Amazon switching from rainforest to savannah , as so much of it has been destroyed.

Last year, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bolivia, Indonesia and Peru were the top five countries for tropical primary forest loss . About 12m hectares (30m acres) of tree cover was lost in the tropics. This includes 4.2m hectares of primary forests, an area the size of the Netherlands, releasing the equivalent to the annual emissions of 570m cars.

Why do people clear forests?

While there are many local factors, experts say the main reason is financial: forests are worth more dead than alive in monetary terms. In Brazil, large parts of the Amazon have been cleared for beef production . In Indonesia, forests and peatlands have been cleared and drained for oil palm plantations. In other areas, coffee, cocoa, bananas, pineapples, coca leaves and subsistence farming have driven land-clearing. Most deforestation hotspots are in tropical regions, which are also profitable areas for farming.

“The largest factor is the expansion of agricultural industries: cattle ranching, soya bean farming and oil palm,” says Malhi. “A second factor is poverty. In many parts of Africa, such as Madagascar, where there is demographic pressure, a lot of poor, rural settlers are just looking to make a living on the frontier as populations increase. The same is true in parts of South America and south-east Asia.”

Can we really stop deforestation?

It will not be easy, but there are reasons to be hopeful. Alongside the commitment from world leaders in Glasgow at Cop26, it is hoped big producers and consumers of commodities linked to deforestation will sign up to eradicating them from the global supply chain. China – one of the world’s largest consumers – is taking deforestation more seriously and is looking at “greening” its supply chain.

“We really need to start thinking about forest loss – especially tropical forest loss – in the same way people are now talking about coal,” says Frances Seymour, a forest and governance expert at the World Resources Institute (WRI). “There was a big celebration that China had committed to no longer financing new coal abroad. But we need to be looking for similar commitments from all countries to stop financing projects that lead to deforestation abroad.”

Are there any examples we can learn from?

Costa Rica is the only tropical country to successfully halt and reverse deforestation. It did so, in part, with payments from an ecosystem services programme that put an economic value on standing forests and biodiversity. The country won the first Earthshot prize this year for the scheme, reversing one of the highest deforestation rates in Latin America in the 70s and regrowing large areas of forest .

On a larger scale, Brazil had considerable success at reducing deforestation in the Amazon in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Environmental laws, improved surveillance of slash-and-burn illegal logging and a soya moratorium in the Amazon were credited with the fall. However, there have since been large spikes in deforestation in the world’s largest rainforest under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. Indonesia has had success in recent years slowing deforestation with a palm oil expansion moratorium, although experts warn it is fragile for the same reasons: the economic incentives to clear forest have not changed.

A UN scheme that provides financial incentives to protect forests – known as Redd+ – has been agreed by countries. It allows developing countries to sell carbon credits to preserve carbon sinks. Although there is still division over the rules for carbon markets , it is hoped these will be sorted at Cop26. Countries like Gabon, with low deforestation rates and large forest cover, say that they also need funding to protect forests . Gabon is the chair of the African group of negotiators for Cop26.

Why are indigenous communities so important for stopping deforestation?

Studies show indigenous communities are the best protectors of forests. Many landscapes thought to be wilderness have actually been managed by indigenous communities for centuries. This year, a UN review of more than 250 studies found that in Latin America, deforestation rates were lower in their territories than elsewhere. Despite this, many indigenous and tribal peoples face persecution, racism and violence.

In July, a two-year trial using remote sensors to alert indigenous communities in Peru to early deforestation found a decrease in tree loss of 37% overall for both years, compared to the control group. Researchers say that if this was scaled up, it could have a big effect on reducing deforestation.

Jessica Webb, senior manager for global engagement at Global Forest Watch, says: “A third of the Amazon rainforest falls within approximately 3,300 formally acknowledged territories of indigenous peoples. Based on modelling we did with our partner Rainforest Foundation US, as a result of this study, we predict that an additional 123,000 hectares a year of deforestation could be prevented by scaling this approach to other communities within the Amazon. It would be the equivalent of taking 21m cars off the road for a year.”

Can satellites protect forests?

Ecosystem monitoring is experiencing a technological revolution. Deforestation is easier to track through a dataset developed by researchers at the University of Maryland, Nasa and Google. As image resolutions improve, we are close to being able to monitor deforestation in real time .

But “there are still gaps on being able to monitor restoration and degradation”, says Crystal Davis, director at the Land & Carbon Lab , a WRI initiative that aims to provide information on how the world can meet climate and biodiversity commitments and the needs of 10 billion humans. “We also need a better understanding of the accuracy of global datasets. They are not consistent across geography,” she says.

What about reforestation?

The world needs to restore forests to meet climate and biodiversity goals . But scientists say halting deforestation is an urgent task as it emits carbon immediately whereas it takes decades for nature to recover and sequester carbon. Primary forests that have stood for thousands of years cannot be replaced by tree-planting schemes.

What if we don’t stop deforestation?

Cutting emissions from fossil fuels is the most urgent task to avoid more global heating. But if the world continues to lose forests, we risk triggering tipping points with unintended consequences. The Amazon could turn into savannah , boreal forests could die back and carbon stores that took thousands of years to sequester could be released. What this would mean for food security, weather systems and millions of other species is unlikely to be good news, experts warn.

Robert Nasi, head of the Center for International Forestry Research, says: “We would have climatic change that is cascading: the drying of the Amazon, the Congo Basin … there is a lot of risk of a domino effect. If we don’t protect the forests, people will migrate, there will be climate refugees.”

With thanks to:

Crystal Davis, director at the Land & Carbon Lab Frances Seymour, distinguished senior fellow, World Resources Institute Luiz Amaral, director, global solutions for commodities and finance, World Resources Institute Robert Nasi, director general at the Center for International Forestry Research Yadvinder Malhi, professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford Jessica Webb, senior manager for global engagement at Global Forest Watch

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

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• Trees and forests
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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 and Forest Loss

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

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

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

A note on UN FAO forestry data

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

How much deforestation occurs each year?

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

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

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

This interactive map shows deforestation rates across the world.

Read more about historical deforestation here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deforestation rates are still high across the tropics

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

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

This is shown in the chart below.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forest definitions and comparisons to other datasets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Estimated losses changed in each successive report:

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

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

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

Forest transitions: why do we lose then regain forests?

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

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

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

Many countries have lost and then regained forests over millennia.

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

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

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

Forest Transitions: the U-shaped curve of forest change

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why do countries lose and then regain forests?

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

There are two reasons that we cut down forests:

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

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

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

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

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

Where are countries in the transition today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding and seeing the drivers of forest loss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One-quarter of forest loss comes from tropical deforestation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tropical deforestation should be our primary concern

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more about the imported deforestation here:

Do rich countries import deforestation from overseas?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How much deforestation emissions is each country responsible for?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Deforestation

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Forest degradation

The forest is a collection of tall trees, higher than 5 meters, that spread over a large area of land, more than 0.5 hectares, and are part of a specific biome. Forests cover a third of the planet Earth, approximately 4.06 billion hectares (FAO 2020 ), and are essential for the production of oxygen and for the reabsorption of CO 2 from the atmosphere. Deforestation is the process of destruction or thinning of forest vegetation carried out by human activities, driven by economic interest. This destruction exacerbates the effects of climate change in many areas such as the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, soil organic matter, the increased risk of landslides and floods, the increase in temperature and drought as well as soil erosion. In addition, millions of individuals live near forests and depend on them for their survival. Their destruction, therefore, entails a very high risk of poverty and important socioeconomic problems. In...

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Castrofino, A. (2023). Deforestation. In: Idowu, S.O., Schmidpeter, R., Capaldi, N., Zu, L., Del Baldo, M., Abreu, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25984-5_1085

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Afforestation Essay for Students and Teacher

500+ words essay on afforestation.

Afforestation refers to the planting of trees in a barren land to create a forest. People often confuse this term with reforestation. However, they are two very different things. Reforestation refers to the specific planting of trees in a forest whose trees are already decreasing. Therefore, reforestation is essentially enhancing the number of trees. And afforestation is basically creating a whole new forest.

Mother Earth has constantly faced difficulties due to human activities. For instance, the exploitation of natural resources, overpopulation, pollution, and deforestation damages the earth severely. Therefore, measures like Afforestation are practiced to prevent further damage.

Importance of Afforestation

The world is constantly evolving and so are the pollution levels. The carbon emission in cities is reaching new heights every day. As more and more industries are being set up, larger areas of forests are being cleared up. The setup of these facilities, thus, gives rise to deforestation.

Afforestation is the need of the hour. We need it to tackle the global issues humans are facing. For example, global warming, soil erosion , pollution , the ecological imbalance is just some of the severe problems. We need measures like afforestation and reforestation to be practiced on a larger scale. Moreover, as we are witnessing the damage to earth with our own eyes, we need to do it quick.

Most importantly, afforestation is something which is very economical and easy. It can help in bringing back the balance of nature. Even if one community vows to practice afforestation, we can successfully create a whole new forest. The first step has already been taken; various NGO’s and government agencies are already involved. We need to create awareness about its importance to make it happen on a bigger scale.

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

Benefits of Afforestation

Afforestation has innumerable benefits. One cannot imagine the advantages it will bring for mankind, wildlife as well as the vegetation. When we practice afforestation, we will be able to prevent soil erosion. This will, in turn, help in maintaining the fertility of the soil. Therefore, it will be beneficial for the agricultural sector.

Furthermore, through afforestation, we can get ample supply of timber, fruit, fodder and more. It will enhance the life of our cattle and help in better crop production. Moreover, afforestation will result in better retention of water. This can prevent droughts too.

Similarly, afforestation will help in protecting the crops from excessive wind and sunlight. In other words, it will shield the crops from damage and help in a better production. Above all, the planting of trees is always beneficial. There is no harm in planting more and more trees. They will help in keeping a check on the levels of carbon dioxide.

In short, we must encourage afforestation. It will help in making the world a greener place. Furthermore, afforestation will secure the future for our upcoming generations. Most importantly, humans must realize the fact that it is we who will suffer if not taken the essential steps. Earth will always survive as it has, we need to save ourselves.

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