Did you know 36 football fields worth of trees are cut down every minute!
The world has lost about 10% of its tropical tree cover since 2000, and nearly 47,000 square miles were destroyed in 2019 alone! Worse still, deforestation accounts for nearly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Deforestation is the permanent removal of trees to replace them for other uses, such as clearing land for farming or livestock, or using the timber for fuel, construction, or manufacturing. Farming, grazing of livestock, mining, and drilling account for over 50% of all deforestation.
Why does it matter? Well trees absorb carbon dioxide, mitigating the emission of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. As climate change continues, trees play an important role in nature-based carbon sequestration. Tropical trees alone are estimated to provide circa 23% of the climate mitigation that is needed to offset climate change, according to the World Resources Institute.
So what can we do? There are several solutions to deforestation. We can continue to campaign to encourage governments around the world to create new laws and regulations to help work towards eliminating deforestation. For example, in 2021 the UK passed an anti-deforestation law designed to eliminate any illegal deforestation from the international supply chains of materials with high forest risk, such as soy, palm oil, wood, paper, rubber and more.
We can also help to spread awareness about the causes, effects, and solutions to deforestation by liking and sharing this post! Please could you do this?
