Deforestation

Deforestation is the conversion of land that carried forest cover into land that no longer does — a permanent land-use change rather than temporary tree removal that regrows. It ranks among the largest contributors to the enhanced greenhouse effect and global warming, since standing forests are both major carbon stores and active carbon sinks, and its main drivers include converting forest into agricultural plantation or livestock ranch land, commercial logging for timber, infrastructure development (roads, electric transmission lines, dams), and the combined pressure of population growth, industrialisation and urbanisation. Its consequences ripple outward from the immediate site: burning cleared forest wood releases the carbon that had been stored in it, working directly against carbon sequestration; losing the root systems that had bound soil particles accelerates soil erosion and, in dry regions, can tip land toward desertification; increased surface run-off raises both flash-flood risk and, contradictorily, overall moisture and humidity loss; shifted local precipitation patterns can trigger drought in surrounding regions and disturb the wider water cycle; biodiversity drops sharply as habitats are disturbed and species interactions disrupted; forest-dependent and rural communities lose …