Deforestation

Deforestation, the removal of forests without adequate replacement, has been an increasingly serious problem worldwide, contributing to timber scarcity and soil depletion as well as to global warming.

Background

Humans have long been cutting down forests for lumber, to clear land for agricultural use, or to make room for settlements. For much of human history, forests were feared as places of danger, so clearing was often seen as part of a civilizing process. Not until the latter part of the twentieth century were large numbers of people disturbed by the continued process of deforestation and its implications. By the late twentieth century, the clearing of tropical rain forests had become the major focus of the deforestation issue, in part because the depletion of plant life may be contributing to global warming. A remote-sensing survey conducted in 2010 by the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) revealed that the average rate of world deforestation was around 14.5 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2005, mainly occurring in the tropics. According to the FAO, despite increased awareness of the issue and a decrease in the rate of deforestation over previous decades, the rate still stood at 10 million hectares per year between 2015 and 2020.

Causes of Deforestation

By the late twentieth century, there were three primary causes of deforestation worldwide: cattle ranching, commercial logging, and both commercial and subsistence agriculture. Other causes include gathering fuel wood, clearing for roads and settlements, and clearing as part of mining operations. In a few cases acid precipitation has also played a role in loss of forest cover. In some less industrialized countries, fuel-wood gathering along forest verges helps gradually push back forest boundaries. In the Middle Ages, clearing for settlements and related agricultural use helped deforest much of northern Europe; later, wood became a major industrial fuel. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many forested areas in the United States were clear-cut to obtain lumber, and this practice remained a cause of deforestation in parts of Asia and South America. Mining operations, especially strip mines, have reduced forests in some areas, and mining wastes make reforestation difficult.

Underlying causes of deforestation are complex, but the most important component has been population pressure. Rapidly increasing populations demand greater amounts of arable land to feed the population and to exploit for economic purposes, and forestland is often the last source of arable land once other land has been used. Technological advances such as chain saws, trucks, and bulldozers have made removing forests easier, which has sped up the process of deforestation. In more developed nations, such as the United States and western European countries, deforestation still occurs, but not at the rate that it does in developing countries—especially in the tropics, where forest clearing occurs at a rate that is not sustainable. By the late twentieth century, most deforestation was occurring in tropical parts of South America, Asia, and Africa.

Clearing forests for commercial agriculture, both for cropland and for cattle raising, accounts for a significant percentage of tropical forest destruction. Some of the land may be allocated to plantation agriculture, which may be sustainable provided there is extensive use of fertilizers. Most of the nutrients found in tropical forests are in the living plants and decomposing matter on the forest floor; clearing removes these nutrients, and the land soon becomes unproductive even with fertilization. Cleared rain-forest land is suitable for cattle grazing for a period of six to ten years, after which the land reverts to scrub savanna.

Commercial logging has always been a cause of deforestation. Considerable forest area in the northeastern and southern United States had been logged by the early twentieth century. Beginning in 1920, much of this land was reforested, so that there was more forested land in the United States in the late twentieth century than there was in 1920. Most timber companies in the United States follow a policy of clear-cutting and then replanting, although generally the replanted land is not the varied type of forest that existed before.

Little deforestation occurred in Asia, South America, and Africa before the nineteenth century. Even by 1900 most areas of the tropics, except India and Brazil, had lost little forest cover. This situation changed in the twentieth century. Tropical rain forests are harvested for export, especially in Southeast Asia. Much of this logging occurs at a rate much faster than can be sustained. In parts of Malaysia, logging occurs at twice the sustainable rate. Industrialized countries have limited the impact of deforestation on their own countries, but their increasing demand for forest products, especially timber, has led to the continuing deforestation of tropical countries.

Conversion of forestland to agricultural land is the primary cause of tropical rain-forest deforestation. Large-scale commercial agriculture accounted for about 40 percent of deforestation in the tropics and subtropics between 2000 and 2010, according to the FAO's 2020 report on the state of the world's forests, while subsistence agriculture accounted for another 33 percent. Clearing for agriculture has always been an important cause of deforestation, but the increased population pressure in many developing countries has contributed to an increasingly rapid rate of deforestation. Many subsistence farmers in these countries have been displaced from traditional agricultural lands. These farmers generally follow a program of slash-and-burn agriculture in which trees are cut, allowed to dry, and burned, and then crops are immediately planted. The yield for the first crops is usually quite high because the nutrients that were in the burned trees transfer to the soil. However, soil productivity rapidly drops off, and subsistence farmers must soon move to another area to start the process over again. The land may then be suitable for cattle ranching for a few years. If practiced on a small scale with a long period between cycles, slash-and-burn agriculture is sustainable, but it is not on its present scale.

All of these causes of deforestation often interact, leading to further deforestation. For example, in order to obtain access to a forest to be harvested for timber, a logging company often cuts a road through the forest. Villages grow up around tropical mining and logging sites, and as they do, more trees are cut to make way for settlement. In some cases governmental policies contribute to deforestation, especially in Asian countries that have state-owned agricultural and timber plantations.

Finally, the demand for goods by industrialized countries is often a driver of deforestation. In nineteenth-century Brazil, large areas were deforested to plant coffee to be sold in the world marketplace. In this case, only the economically elite landowners benefited. Japanese consumption of timber has led to the rapid deforestation of Malaysia and parts of Indonesia. The consumption of beef throughout the industrial world leads to additional land clearing for ranching in South America. Although industrialized countries have largely halted the loss of their own forests, their consumption patterns have led to the continuing deforestation of the tropics.

Impact of Deforestation

Deforestation has several directly observable impacts on, and long-term consequences for, the environment. Clearing of forests without suitable replanting decreases timber supplies, often leads to potential degradation of the soil and water, reduces species diversity, and may contribute to long-term climate change. In addition, there are often negative impacts on indigenous populations who are forced to move or subsist on substandard land.

Because of reforestation projects, forest cover in the United States and western Europe began growing in 1990, in spite of population pressure. However, in the tropics, the rate of deforestation began accelerating at the same time. The FAO has reported that Brazil, for example, lost 423,033 square kilometers of Amazonian forest (an area roughly the size of California) between 1990 and 2005. Although the rate of decrease had slowed dramatically by 2022, the estimated deforestation rate in Amazonia from August 2021 to July 2022 was 11,568 square kilometers. Although Brazil deforested the most land, other tropical countries also deforested large areas, most notably Indonesia, Sudan, Burma, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Total area deforested is one means of measuring deforestation; another is percentage of forested land cleared. Because Brazil has such a large total of forested land, its situation does not appear as bad by this measure. Eighteen tropical countries cleared at least 20 percent of their forests between 1990 and 2005. Comoros, an island nation near Madagascar, cleared 60 percent of its forests during the period; Burundi cleared 47 percent of its forests; and Togo, Mauritania, and Honduras also cleared significant forestland during this period. Haiti and Madagascar had cleared much of their forestland before 1990 but continued to clear what little forested land remained. The countries with high rates of deforestation have cleared land for a combination of reasons, including selling the wood products to foreign firms and producing more land for agriculture.

Much of the logging of the past was carried out without any regard to the availability of future timber supplies, and this remained the case in areas such as Malaysia. Most commercial logging operations have engaged in clear-cutting of an area rather than selective cutting of some trees.

When trees are replanted and allowed to mature in clear-cut areas, it is possible to achieve a sustainable yield. However, the original forest often consisted of a variety of trees, while newly planted forests generally consist of only one or two types of trees, often pines. In areas in which no replanting is done after the timber is harvested, a variety of negative impacts occur, such as and the subsequent silting up of neighboring streams.

Some cleared forestland remains suitable for agriculture for a long period of time. Tropical rain-forest land, however, is usually not suitable for agriculture. Once exposed to the direct impact of rain and sunlight, this land quickly becomes degraded through erosion, oxidation, and laterization. After only a few years of agricultural productivity, the former rain-forest land is often abandoned with scant hope of regeneration.

Forested land slows runoff from rains, preventing erosion and floods downstream. When tropical rain forests are cleared, runoff increases, leading to pollution of streams and, eventually, to the silting up of reservoirs downstream and the loss of topsoil. This process spreads the impact of deforestation to areas that are not directly affected by the forest clearing and may create substantial costs as the useful life of reservoirs is reduced.

The impact of forest clearing on species diversity is twofold. Even when forests are replanted by commercial loggers, they are generally forests with only one species of tree, reducing local species diversity. Clear-cutting in particular often forces animals and birds to migrate from the area, in many cases not to return. The Rainforest Foundation US estimates that the less than 7 percent of Earth’s land surface that is covered by tropical rain forests is home to more than half of all species on Earth. The dramatic deforestation of tropical rain forests that occurred in the late twentieth century caused some species to be destroyed even before they could be catalogued. This reduction in species diversity, through either direct destruction or the loss of habitat, may lead to the loss of various organisms of great value.

The impact of global deforestation on climate change has become increasingly known. A variety of studies indicate that deforestation can have a substantial long-term regional and global impact by increasing the amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, two greenhouse gases, in the atmosphere. Some researchers indicate that diminished biomass leads to a decrease in the absorption of carbon dioxide and resulting global warming. In addition, deforestation can lead to greater climatic extremes within a particular region. Brazil, which is not an industrial country, was being viewed as one of the largest contributors to because of the impact of deforestation, especially in terms of forest fires that occur when timber is cut in some areas. However, a study published by Daniel Nepstad and colleagues in Science in 2014 reported that due to the country's concerted efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, it had become a world leader by reducing deforestation by 70 percent and keeping 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. At the same time, governments, particularly at the federal level, continued to play an integral role in any efforts to reduce deforestation. Following the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil in 2018, environmentalists argued that his administration's policies favored industrial development through activities like mining and farming over conservation, allowing for an increase in illegal logging and overall deforestation. Using satellite data, in 2019 Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported a loss of 9,762 square kilometers of rain forest between August 2018 and July 2019, marking the largest rate of Amazon deforestation since 2008; according to some reports, that number was revised to be even higher by the following year. In 2020, an especially large amount of fires, which had also occurred at alarming rates in 2019, raged in the Amazon as environmentalists emphasized a continued rise in deforestation levels through illegal mining, logging, and agricultural clearing further enabled by a reduction in authoritative monitoring and enforcement during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

A 2022 report released by the INPE indicated that deforestation had not only continued at a high rate in the Brazilian Amazon, but that it had occurred at an even greater rate over a short period of time. According to the INPE, from January to March 2022, a record 941.34 square kilometers of forest were cleared, making it a 64 percent increase over the same stretch of time in 2021. Analysts cited agricultural pursuits as one of the top factors prompting deforestation in this area. Additionally, a group of researchers issued a prominent warning, based on their studies, that the levels of deforestation in the Amazon had created a situation in which at least many parts of the rainforest may not be able to recover, instead transitioning to grassland that would contribute larger amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. At the same time, a 2022 World Resources Institute report showed that some countries, including Indonesia and Malaysia, were still managing to decrease and keep deforestation in check to an extent with improved regulations.

In some tropical countries, the indigenous forest populations have come under intense pressure from companies and individuals who want to clear the forests for profit. The situation has been most troubling in the Amazon basin in Brazil, where Indigenous peoples such as the Bororo have been attacked and killed in efforts to force them out of the forest so that it can be cleared. In other areas Indigenous populations may not be attacked but are forced to subsist without their usual habitat or move elsewhere. Although the Brazilian government has taken some measures to alleviate the abuses in Amazonia, timber cutters still threaten Indigenous peoples.

Prospects for the Future

Many developed nations are no longer clearing forestland for agriculture and engage in controlled harvesting of timber so that sustainable yields can be achieved. In some cases, such as in the eastern United States, substantial reforestation began occurring in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, threats to the forests of developed countries remain.

In developing countries, particularly those with tropical forests, deforestation is a significant problem. In some cases, the rates of deforestation are continuing to increase. Without efforts to deal with population and economic pressures, slowing the rate of forest loss will be difficult. Some developing countries are trying to preserve their forests as future reserves or as present economic assets by having them serve as attractions for foreign tourists. Costa Rica, for example, has lost much of its forest but has instituted a program of setting aside extensive forest reserves as a method of preservation. Designating parkland is not always effective, however. In some countries, people, often driven by poverty, continue to cut timber in parks. An example of this behavior has occurred in the Bom Futuro National Reserve in Brazil, which lost nearly one-quarter of its forest cover (64,800 hectares) from 2002 to 2007.

Some international environmental groups have offered economic incentives to developing nations to preserve their forests. The Nature Conservancy, for example, engages in a program of buying up parts of a nation’s debt in return for guarantees that the country will preserve some of its forests. At times, the Brazilian government has taken measures to strengthen local land ownership rules, setting aside forest reserves and limiting tax credits for firms that do not comply with environmental rules governing deforestation. However, overcoming local logging that is driven by economic necessity is difficult. Selective logging is used in Bolivia so that local communities can achieve some economic gain and preserve large forest tracts rather than indigenous people having to sell large tracts to timber companies to raise money. Elsewhere, governments continue to pursue economic development at all costs, leading to further deforestation. Extensive work by all nations working together to prevent further deforestation is necessary.

Moving toward this goal, governments all over the world made an ambitious pledge to end global deforestation by 2030 during the UN Climate Summit held in New York in 2014. Endorsed by several governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia (the country with the highest rate of deforestation), the document referred to as the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) was also backed by many multinational companies. A number of such companies that use palm oil in their products, including Kellogg, General Mills, Unilever, and Nestlé, committed to only using deforestation-free supply chains. While many food-industry giants did not make a similar commitment, and while a 2019 report assessing the previous five years of the NYDF revealed that many such committed companies were not making sufficient efforts to ensure that their supply chains do not contribute to deforestation and not enough progress had been made to meet such 2020 goals as halving tropical deforestation, environmentalists expressed hope that this unified mission was still a big step in the right direction. Persistently high levels of deforestation, however, led to an even greater number of countries making a new pact, with accompanying detailed guidelines for an even shorter timeline, at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference to protect forests and stop all deforestation by 2030. This goal was reaffirmed at the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference.

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