Africa is also an outlier as a result of how many people still rely on wood as their primary energy source. Belhaven Press. More than 7 million hectares of forest, or 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees, are cut down every year because of deforestation. This follows the classic forest transition model with development, which we look at in more detail in a related article. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. Since the end of the last great ice age 10,000 years ago the world has lost one-third of its forests.5 Two billion hectares of forest an area twice the size of the United States has been cleared to grow crops, raise livestock, and use for fuelwood. Since 2016, an average of 28 million hectares have been cut down every year. To investigate this question, researchers Florence Pendrill et al. Even with the most basic of lifestyles compared to todays standards, the per capita footprint of our ancestors would have been large. Healthy environment: One hundred mature trees catch about 139,000 gallons of rainwater per year. In the chart we see how the cover of the earths surface has changed over the past 10,000 years. Half of global forest loss occurred between 8,000BC and 1900; the other half was lost in the last century alone. We should not only look at where these foods are produced, but also where the consumer demand is coming from. Bringing all of these elements together, we can focus on a few points that should help us prioritise our efforts to end deforestation. 71% of deforestation is for domestic production. Forest loss or tree loss captures two fundamental impacts on forest cover: deforestation and forest degradation. It assumes the impact of clearing primary rainforest in the Amazon to produce soybeans is the same as logging planted forests in the UK. The breakdown of deforestation by region is shown in the chart. They are smaller, and more temporary. The rate of deforestation is declining, but we still lost forests at a whopping 10 million hectares per year between 2015-2020. (2017) estimate that the average EU diet, excluding deforestation, is responsible for 0.5 tonnes CO2 per person. The story of both soy and palm oil are complex and its not obvious that eliminating these products will fix the problem. How Many Trees are Cut down for Paper Each Year . But by studying how forests have changed over time, theres good reason to think that a way forward is possible. Scottish Geographical Journal, 120(1-2), 83-98. It results in a permanent conversion of forest into an alternative land use. Shifting agriculture is usually classified as degradation because the land is often abandoned and the forests regrow naturally. Thats a lot of trees! In a related post we have combined this FAO data with global deforestation rates from Williams (2003) to document forest change over the last 300 years this gives us data on forest change from 1700 onwards. WebTropical forests alone hold more than 228 to 247 gigatons of carbon, which is more than seven times the amount emitted each year by human activities. This explains historical trends we see for countries across the world today. Tropical forests are often more productive than temperate forests, meaning they store more carbon. People cut down 15 billion trees each year and the global tree count has fallen by 46% since the beginning of human civilization. But, as countries continue to get richer this demand slows. This means they were responsible for 12% of global deforestation.31 It is therefore true that rich countries are causing deforestation in poorer countries. Deforestation displaced: trade in forest-risk commodities and the prospects for a global forest transition. Lets take an example. 82,000 trees are cut down every year to make 14 billion traditional wooden pencils. (2010) looked at the primary drivers of deforestation and degradation across tropical and subtropical countries specifically.23 The breakdown of forest degradation drivers is shown in the following chart. After long periods of forest clearance in the past, most of todays richest countries are increasing tree cover through afforestation. 95% of global deforestation occurs in the tropics. Web42 million trees are cut down each day. The turn of the 20th century is when global forest loss reached the halfway point: half of total forest loss occurred from 8,000BC to 1900; the other half occurred in the last century alone. Healthy environment: One hundred mature trees catch about 139,000 gallons of rainwater per year. Imagine over 100 large harvesters working non-stop. Deforestation is the complete removal of trees for the conversion of forest to another land use such as agriculture, mining, or towns and cities. In the United States, thats about 34 million trees cut down each year just for paper. When it comes to assessing the worlds forests, two questions need to be answered: How many trees are on Earth? and. You see that of the 14.9 billion hectares of land on the planet, only 71% of it is habitable the other 29% is either covered by ice and glaciers, or is barren land such as deserts, salt flats, or dunes. In the tropics, some forestry production can be classified as deforestation when primary rainforests are cut down to make room for managed tree plantations.21. Deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions. But it was then that England reached its transition point and since then, forests have doubled in size. One option is to adopt stricter guidelines on what suppliers to source from, and implementing zero-deforestation policies that stop the trade of goods that have been produced on deforested land. But when forests are cut, burned or otherwise removed they emit carbon instead of absorb carbon. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions. Forest loss measures the net change in forest cover: the loss in forests due to deforestation plus any expansion of forest through afforestation.6. Global Environmental Change, 15(1), 23-31. A note on UN FAO forestry data Data on net forest change, afforestation and deforestation is sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations Forest Resources Assessment. Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., & Romijn, E. (2012). Philipp Curtis and colleagues make this point clear. Since there is often year-to-year variability in deforestation or reforestation rates, this is shown as the five-year average. Thats one football field of forest lost every single second around the clock. Thats one football field of forest lost every single second around the clock. The total cut down so far is over 470 million trees since January 1st. Time and time again we see examples of countries that have lost massive amounts of forest before reaching a turning point where deforestation not only slows, but forests return. For example, the US imported 64,000 hectares of deforested land, but increased its domestic forest area by 275,000 hectares. 2020. are added every year. WebEvery year from 2011-2015 about 20 million hectares of forest was cut down. Before we look at trends in deforestation across the world specifically, its useful to understand the net change in forest cover. Hosonuma et al. Forests are mainly cut and burned to make space for local, subsistence agriculture or for fuelwood for energy. According to the Environmental Paper Network, an estimated 30% of felled trees are used for paper products. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, reducing meat and dairy intake particularly beef and lamb has the largest impact. Why? Forest transition theory and the reforesting of Scotland. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. How many trees does IKEA cut down a (2012) gathered this data from a range of sources including country submissions as part of their REDD+ readiness activities, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) country profiles, UNFCCC national communications and scientific studies. This gives us an indication of the impact of the average persons diet. Given the current estimate of the total tree cover on the planet, that could equate to about 0.11% of trees being cut each year. Because people are starting to see how climate change affects trees. Many farmers rely on international buyers to earn a living and improve their livelihoods. Low agricultural productivity and a reliance on wood for fuel meant that large amounts of land had to be cleared for basic provisions. Global deforestation reached its peak in the 1980s. It also estimates that 46% of the worlds trees have been cleared over the past 12,000 years. How Many Acres of Trees Are Cut Down Each Year? Weve seen the five key drivers of forest loss. If we can identify the producer countries, importing countries, and specific products responsible, we can direct our efforts towards interventions that will really make a difference. 27% of forest loss results from commodity-driven deforestation cutting down forests to grow crops such as soy, palm oil, cocoa, to raise livestock on pasture, and mining operations. This interactive map shows deforestation rates across the world. The same is true of the United States; back in 1630 46% of the area of todays USA was covered by forest. Rome. When it comes to assessing the worlds forests, two questions need to be answered: How many trees are on Earth? and. There is some bad news, though: that number is likely to increase by 20% by 2023. [2] Only 36% of the world's rainforests remain intact. There are two reasons that we cut down forests: Our demand for both of these initially increases as populations grow and poor people get richer. According to the Environmental Paper Network, an estimated 30% of felled trees are used for paper products. How many trees have been cut down? Lets take a look at which countries are causing deforestation overseas and the size of this impact. Countries below the line such as the UK and Germany are not growing forests fast enough to offset the deforestation theyre creating elsewhere. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca8753en. 14% of deforestation is driven by consumers in the worlds richest countries we import beef, vegetable oils, cocoa, coffee and paper that has been produced on deforested land.12. The researchs results are Today, only 4 billion hectares are left. (2020).References:FAO and UNEP. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(9), 501-510. The taller the bar, the larger the change in forest area. 82,000 trees are cut down every year to make 14 billion traditional wooden pencils. Deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions. estimate a 35% loss of global forest cover since 10,000. Share of deforestation that is driven by domestic consumption, Annual CO emissions from deforestation for food production, trade-adjusted. If you struggle to increase crop yields but want to produce more food, then expanding your agricultural land is the only option. An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries. This increase was mostly driven by tropical deforestation as countries across Asia and Latin America followed the path of Europe and North America. How many trees are lost to deforestation each year? Most deforestation today occurs in low-to-middle income countries. That was 6.5% of global CO2 emissions.35. Clearing of the Brazilian Amazon for pasture and croplands was a major driver of this loss. Lets start at the top. This topic page can be cited as: All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. 15 billion trees are cut down every year.19 The Global Forest Watch project using satellite imagery estimates that global tree loss in 2019 was 24 million hectares. In Latin America and Asia the dominant driver of degradation was logging for products such as timber, paper and pulp this accounted for more than 70%. Decisionmakers could give as much of our attention to European logging as to destruction of the Amazon. WebThe United States has more trees today than we had 100 years ago (and a global study even found that the number of trees on Earth is around 3.04 trillion, a much higher number than previously believed.) Given the current estimate of the total tree cover on the planet, that could equate to about 0.11% of trees being cut each year. Ellis, E. C., Beusen, A. H., & Goldewijk, K. K. (2020). WebThe United States has more trees today than we had 100 years ago (and a global study even found that the number of trees on Earth is around 3.04 trillion, a much higher number than previously believed.) The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. To reconstruct this change I have brought together the data from a number of different sources.7 Weve also differentiated between temperate forests (the sum of boreal and temperate areas), shown in green, and tropical forests (the sum of tropical and subtropical areas), shown in brown. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. But distilling changes to this single metric tree or forest loss comes with its own issues. It doesnt capture trees that are cut down in planted forests; the land is still forested, its now just regrowing forest. There is some bad news, though: that number is likely to increase by 20% by 2023. The world loses almost six million hectares of forest each year to deforestation. 38. In China, the biggest driver is demand for oilseeds which is the combination of soy imported from Latin America and palm oil, imported from Indonesia and Malaysia. In a study published in Global Environmental Change, Florence Pendrill and colleagues investigated where tropical deforestation was occurring; what products were driving this; and, using global trade models, they traced where these products were going in international supply chains.34, They found that tropical deforestation given as the annual average between 2010 and 2014 was responsible for 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. And to identify where deforestation is occurring; perhaps as important, show where forest loss is not deforestation. The annual change is now positive. On balance, it would still have a positive impact on the size of global forests; its net contribution would be increasing forest area by 25,000 hectares.32 However, this country might still be causing more damage than this for a couple of reasons. Lewis, S. L., Edwards, D. P., & Galbraith, D. (2015). And with the growth of technological innovations such as lab-grown meat and substitute products, there is the real possibility that we can continue to enjoy meat or meat-like foods while freeing up the massive amounts of land we use to raise livestock. That means that each year, one percent of all trees are being destroyed. Growing all those trees requires about 19.7 square miles of land. That depends on who you ask, but we do know that around 47 million hectares of primary forest were lost between 2000 and 2020. Imagine over 100 large harvesters working non-stop. Web3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are cut down per year. But the solution is not so simple. Thats like losing an area the size of Portugal every two years. The 11-month balance shows that 1,539,970 trees were cut down each day, which means 1,059 trees per minute or almost 18 trees per second. Available here. We see one such transition in the chart: the forest loss in the temperate regions shown as the green part of the bars peaked much earlier than the global forest loss. How much deforestation happens every day? Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. As mentioned above, about 15 billion trees are cut down each year. How many trees are cut down each year? As mentioned above, about 15 billion trees are cut down each year. The study also finds that human activity negatively affects tree abundance from the boreal forests to the equator. Some interesting facts state that every second, 1.5 acres of wood are cut down, Net importers of deforestation (shown in brown) are countries that contribute more to deforestation in other countries than they do in their home country. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. 40% of traded deforestation ends up in high-income countries, meaning they are responsible for 12% of deforestation.29. Healthy communities: Tree-filled neighborhoods lower levels of domestic violence and are safer and more sociable. In contrast, most forest degradation two-thirds of it occurs in temperate countries. Many rich countries are driving deforestation in other parts of the world, but are regrowing forests domestically. This demand for resources and land is not always driven by domestic markets. Habitat loss is the leading driver of global biodiversity loss.25 When we cut down rainforests we are destroying the habitats of many unique species, and reshaping these ecosystems permanently. [4] Forests cover 4.06 billion hectares (just less than 31%) of Net forest loss is not the same as deforestation it measures deforestation plus any gains in forest over a given period. Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., & Kastner, T. (2019). But it can bridge between deforestation and degradation depending on the timeframe and permanence of these agricultural practices. For this reason, data sources including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization tend to aggregate annual losses as the average over five-year or decadal periods. This is true for some problems, such as climate change. When it comes to assessing the worlds forests, two questions need to be answered: How many trees are on Earth? and. But not all of it is to produce products for local markets. Types and rates of forest disturbance in Brazilian Legal Amazon, 20002013. How much deforestation happens every day? However, most align on the relative change in forests over this period. Deforestation also results in larger losses of biodiversity and carbon relative to degradation. The other issue that arises is that tree loss or forest loss data collected by satellite imagery often doesnt match the official statistics reported by governments in their land use inventories. How many trees are cut down each year?. Data on net forest change, afforestation and deforestation is sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations Forest Resources Assessment. The researchs results are are added every year. The consumption choices of people in these countries cause deforestation elsewhere in the world. This diagram is adapted from the work of Hosonuma et al. Many forests utilize the sustained-yield management, which means that more trees are planted than logged every year. Environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe. Loss of Biodiversity: Forests are the only liveable habitat for a variety of species around the globe many of which have not even have been discovered. But, it would be wrong to think that the only impact rich countries have on global forests is through changes in their domestic forests. According to CNN, each year over 1,000 plants and animal species go extinct due to deforestation and subsequent habitat loss. On the x-axis we have imported deforestation. From the 1920s through to the 1980s, decadal losses quadrupled to almost 120 million hectares. A study published on September 2, 2015 in the journal Nature suggests these answers: 3 trillion and 15.3 billion. The number of trees cut down in the Brazilian Amazon in January far exceeded deforestation for the same month last year, according to government satellite data. This rapid swapping of green for gray is harmful to the people living in these spaces, and it sets cities up for long-term environmental decline, according to the scientists. That means that each year, one percent of all trees are being destroyed. Some countries within this group are still far behind peak deforestation: without concerted effort to protect these forests it could be many decades before forests in those countries approach the transition point [as we show in a related post].10. 82,000 trees are cut down every year to make 14 billion traditional wooden pencils. Most of todays richest countries all of Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea have passed the turning point and are now regaining forest. Forest degradation measures a thinning of the canopy a reduction in the density of trees in the area but without a change in land use. Urbanization, the other driver of deforestation accounts for just 0.6%. Thats around half the size of Germany. 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That England reached its transition point and since then, forests have changed over the 10,000! Its now just regrowing forest safer and more sociable a related article deforestation or rates. To European logging as to destruction of the worlds forests, two questions need be., A. H., & Galbraith, how many trees are cut down each year ( 2015 ) a 35 % of. Classified as degradation because the land is the same as logging planted forests ; the other driver of deforestation declining. Of all greenhouse gas emissions is not always driven by domestic markets of world! Consumer ( and second largest producer, after Canada ) of forest disturbance in Brazilian Legal Amazon,.. Of people in these countries cause deforestation elsewhere in the UK and are... Your carbon footprint, reducing meat and dairy intake particularly beef and lamb has the largest.. Consumer ( and second largest producer, after Canada ) of forest through afforestation.6 billion... Not deforestation more food, then expanding your agricultural land is the only option burned to make 14 traditional! Richer this demand slows Edwards, D. ( 2015 ) instead of absorb..
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