Deforestation is not just a problem in local environments.
Deforestation is a global issue.
We must all do our part to keep the lungs of our world healthy.
The best way to do this is to plant at least enough trees to
neutralize your own carbon footprint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best of all, the local communities will get the direct benefits from your trees. 

Click here to find out more about planting your trees.

 

Deforestation

 

A forest is such an exciting place. Pictures come to mind - of tall trees reaching heavenward, shady groves, dead leaves, small animals, pine cones, fallen logs. Images of filtered light, gentle rustling of leaves, quietness, only the breaking of twigs underfoot. Forests set the scene for children's books and mighty movies. Why would anyone want to cut them down? Apart from all that the imagination may conjure up, forests play a vital role in society, assisting with the direct livelihood of a billion people beneath the canopy of trees, a war is being fought between the need to preserve the planet's ecosystem and the (regularly) greedy demand for development. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the negative effects of deforestation cannot be counted. They go beyond what man knows, but include habitat loss, devastation to the eco-system and they contribute to climate change. Another one of the major problems with deforestation is that it is leading to more and more animals becoming extinct. Across the world, every day, thousands of hectares of forest are being cut down. 
Why? Here are some of the reasons.

 

Personal Household Use

Most people don’t think about how much we are personally responsible for deforestation. If you look around your house, office or school, you may get a little shock. Look at your desk, filing cabinets and shelves. Your bedroom wardrobes, bed frames and tables. Even objects that we may not realize are made out of wood actually came from forests, such as the kitchen cabinets, the inside of your sofa and even the floorboards in your house. Every individual directly uses wood every single day, including paper of course.  All of this wood had to come from one of these forests. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increasing Demand For Agriculture  

This is the primary, most widespread cause of deforestation. Land is cleared of trees to provide for growing food and raising livestock. In rural parts of mainly third world countries, subsistence farmers strip acres of land in order to plant crops and raise animals so they can live. They have no idea they are causing some of the long-term effects of deforestation. They are uneducated and need to survive. That's their motive. While the need to survive is a basic instinct, it doesn't detract from the fact that they are hurting the planet. With the world's population growing at a rate of 1.14% per year, *1, this cause of deforestation is not going to go away any time soon.

 

On a grander scale, deforestation rates increase with the surge in demand for products such as palm oil and soy. A massive 85% of the world's palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia. The developers of the region believe palm oil to be far more valuable than forestry, so trees are wiped out in order to plant more palm trees. They don't use sustainable methods either, resulting in palm oil deforestation becoming one of the biggest threats to the eco-system of South-east Asia.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cattle Ranching

Cattle ranching is one of the leading causes of deforestation in the Amazon region. It's not a case of a small family burning a few trees in order to eke out a living in a previously forested area. These are huge swathes of forests annihilated in favour of cattle farms. A massive 80% of Amazon forest is sacrificed for ranching. The rate of deforestation sky-rockets as previously forested land is used and the trees not replaced. Brazil is the largest exporter of cattle in the world. (http://www.biglandsbrazil.com/cattle-and-ranches/) and is punted to potential investors as a great opportunity to make money. But it comes at the massive cost of deforestation and climate change.

 

Building of Roads to Rural Areas

Deforestation may not be needed to build roads, but it can be an outcome as it opens up access to previously remote areas. As a road network to an area is developed, those needing to make a living, sometimes illegally, make use of the access opportunity to cut down the trees and sell the timber. *2

Loggers have no more use for the land once they have taken the trees and they leave the area. These open areas of broken forest are identified by farmers who move onto the land burning the remaining stumps to turn it into pasture-lands. They complete the process of deforestation and habitat loss that began with road building.

 

Poverty

One of the facts about deforestation is that it is enhanced by poverty, particularly in the tropics. While one family may tear down a small grove of a dozen trees to create space for their subsistence farm, the problem escalates when ten more families join. Deforestation rates multiply when the new occupants claim their 12 trees worth of space. With 120 trees gone, more people move to the land and soon 100 families are there – 1200 trees are moved to make space. Perhaps only then the impact of deforestation is noticed, but it's too late. The trees are gone.

 

While 4 causes of deforestation have been outlined, they are intertwined. It remains vital, therefore that we support reforestation organisations which strive to replace trees and highlight the catastrophic negative effects of deforestation. With 7.28 billion people in the world, (http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) a means of survival needs to be found that doesn't include deforestation.

 

Have you planted your trees yet?

Be a part of the solution - Plant your trees today !

Sources:

*1 http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/  

*2 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/deforestation_update3.php 

*3http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/amazon/problems/unsustainable_cattle_ranching

*4 http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/