Deforestation, clearance, clearcutting
or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land which is
then converted to a non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of
forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated
deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31% of Earth's land surface
is covered by forests.
Deforestation can occur for several
reasons: trees can be cut down to be used for building or sold as fuel
(sometimes in the form of charcoal or timber), while cleared land can be used
as pasture for livestock and plantation. The removal of trees without
sufficient reforestation has resulted in habitat damage, biodiversity loss, and
aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon
dioxide. Deforestation has also been used in war to deprive the enemy of vital
resources and cover for its forces. Modern examples of this were the use of
Agent Orange by the British military in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency and
by the United States military in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. As of 2005,
net deforestation rates had ceased to increase in countries with a per capita
GDP of at least US$4,600. Deforested regions typically incur significant
adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland.
Disregard of ascribed value, lax
forest management, and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors
that lead to large-scale deforestation. In many countries, deforestation—both
naturally occurring and human-induced—is an ongoing issue. Deforestation causes
extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement
of populations, as observed by current conditions and in the past through the
fossil record. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the world
live in tropical forests.
Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million
square kilometres (890,000 sq mi) of forests around the world were cut down. 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.[10] 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.
More than 3.6 million hectares of
virgin tropical forest was lost in 2018.
Causes
According to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, the overwhelming
direct cause of deforestation is agriculture. 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%.
Experts do not agree on whether
industrial logging is an important contributor to global deforestation. 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. One study found that population increases
due to high fertility rates were a primary driver of tropical deforestation in
only 8% of cases.
Other causes of contemporary
deforestation may include corruption of government institutions, the
inequitable distribution of wealth and power, population growth and
overpopulation, and urbanization. Globalization is often viewed as another root
cause of deforestation, though there are cases in which the impacts of
globalization (new flows of labor, capital, commodities, and ideas) have
promoted localized forest recovery.
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".
The degradation of forest ecosystems has
also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more
profitable than forest conservation. 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. 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 shouldn't have to bear the cost of
preservation when the rich created the problem.
Some commentators have noted a shift in
the drivers of deforestation over the past 30 years. 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
earlier 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. 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.
Reforestation
In many parts of the world, especially
in East Asian countries, reforestation and afforestation are increasing the
area of forested lands. The amount of woodland 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.
In the People's Republic of China, where
large scale destruction of forests has occurred, the government has in the past
required that every able-bodied citizen between the ages of 11 and 60 plant
three to five trees per year or do the equivalent amount of work in other
forest services. The government claims that at least 1 billion trees have been
planted in China every year since 1982. This is no longer required today, but
12 March of every year in China is the Planting Holiday. Also, it has
introduced the Green Wall of China project, which aims to halt the expansion of
the Gobi desert through the planting of trees. However, due to the large
percentage of trees dying off after planting (up to 75%), the project is not
very successful. There has been a 47-million-hectare increase in forest area in
China since the 1970s. The total number of trees amounted to be about 35
billion and 4.55% of China's land mass increased in forest coverage. The forest
coverage was 12% two decades ago and now is 16.55%.
An ambitious proposal for China is the
Aerially Delivered Re-forestation and Erosion Control System and the proposed
Sahara Forest Project coupled with the Seawater Greenhouse.
In Western countries, increasing
consumer demand for wood products that have been produced and harvested in a
sustainable manner is causing forest landowners and forest industries to become
increasingly accountable for their forest management and timber harvesting
practices.
The Arbor Day Foundation's Rain Forest
Rescue program is a charity that helps to prevent deforestation. The charity
uses donated money to buy up and preserve rainforest land before the lumber
companies can buy it. The Arbor Day Foundation then protects the land from
deforestation. This also locks in the way of life of the primitive tribes
living on the forest land. Organizations such as Community Forestry
International, Cool Earth, The Nature Conservancy, World Wide Fund for Nature,
Conservation International, African Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace also
focus on preserving forest habitats. Greenpeace in particular has also mapped
out the forests that are still intact and published this information on the
internet. World Resources Institute in turn has made a simpler thematic map showing the amount of forests present just
before the age of man (8000 years ago) and the current (reduced) levels of
forest. These maps mark the amount of afforestation required to repair the
damage caused by people.
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