“Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting trees is simple”

Deforestation is the loss of forest land for other purposes such as agricultural crops, urbanisation, or mining operations around the world. Deforestation has harmed natural ecosystems, biodiversity, and the climate, and has been increased by human activity since 1960. Deforestation is estimated to be roughly 1.3 million km2 per decade by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

Causes:

Agriculture is responsible for almost 80% of deforestation, according to the FAO. What causes so much deforestation, and how does agriculture contribute to it? According to the same report, subsistence agriculture – such as local peasant agriculture in underdeveloped nations – is responsible for 33% of agricultural-caused deforestation.

In the search for space to grow food, textiles, or biofuels, commercial or industrial agriculture (field crops and animals) is responsible for roughly 40% of forest loss (such as soybeans, palm oil, beef, rice, maize, cotton and sugar cane). It's also worth noting that livestock is thought to be responsible for approximately 14% of worldwide deforestation. The main reasons for this are the huge expanses required for both raising livestock and growing its (soy-based) food.

Deforestation has also been fueled by the creation of human infrastructure. More specifically, new infrastructures that service the contemporary human lifestyle in four ways: transportation, transformation, and energy generation, account for 10% of deforestation.

On the one hand, roads, railways, ports, and airports have been created to transport a wide range of items – from grains and fruits to spices, minerals, and fossil fuels – to trading hubs or transformation sites. So, while there were simply fruit trees at first, highways were quickly built to allow fruit to be transported to other areas. While some items were and are manually obtained, others, such as coal, oil, natural gas, biomass, but also meat, dairy, and spirits, necessitated the creation of vast extraction, transportation, and/or transformation infrastructures.

Deforestation is being aided by a demographic shift that is causing people to migrate from rural to urban regions (5 percent , according to FAO). This urbanisation – by 2050, cities are predicted to house 68 percent of the world's population – is resulting in an exponential increase of housing and consumption places. And, when cities grow in size to accommodate more people, they push against the natural boundaries that surround them, resulting in deforestation. One of the reasons for deforestation is because of this.

Effects:

Deforestation has a variety of effects on the climate. Our planet's lungs are forests. Tropical rainforests are particularly humid because trees absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen and water vapour into the air.

In addition, trees produce shade, which helps to keep the soil moist. The loss of trees jeopardises all of these. It causes an imbalance in atmospheric temperature, a drier environment, and more severe ecological circumstances, all of which contribute to climate change.

Several animal and plant species that make up the world's flora and fauna are well-adapted to their natural habitat. As a result, random forest clearing would make it extremely difficult for them to survive, shift from their original ecosystem, or adapt to new conditions.

Trees play a significant part in reducing global warming. The trees absorb greenhouse gases, maintaining the atmosphere's balance. The ratio of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased as a result of continual deforestation, adding to our global warming issues.

Forests assist in the reduction of carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gas emissions. They become carbon sources once they are cut, burned, or otherwise eliminated.

Deforestation is thought to be responsible for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, with 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon released into the atmosphere each year owing to tropical deforestation.