Deforestation and loss of Rainforests

Maintaining the health of Rainforests is crucial for human survival. The biggest reason we destroy forests is agriculture, we cut down forests primarily to make space for fields to grow crops and pastures to raise livestock. Moving to a plant-based diet would help prevent the death of this critical ecosystem.

Read a roundup of the headlines below:

“As well as the vivid beauty that comes with great diversity in plants and animals, rainforests also play a practical role in keeping our planet healthy.

By absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing the oxygen that we depend on for our survival. The absorption of this CO2 also helps to stabilize the Earth's climate.

Rainforests also help to maintain the world's water cycle by adding water to the atmosphere through the process of transpiration which creates clouds. Water generated in rainforests travel around the world; scientists think that moisture generated in the forests of Africa ends up falling as rain in the Americas!”

Rainforest Concern, Why are rainforests important?

“Pristine rainforests were once again destroyed at a relentless rate in 2021, according to new figures, prompting concerns governments will not meet a Cop26 deal to halt and reverse deforestation by the end of the decade.

From the Brazilian Amazon to the Congo basin, the tropics lost 11.1m hectares of tree cover last year, including 3.75m ha of primary forest critical to limiting global heating and biodiversity loss.

Boreal forests, mainly in Russia, experienced a record loss in 2021 driven by the worst wildfire season in Siberia since records began, according to new data from the University of Maryland released via Global Forest Watch.

Experts called the continued forest loss a disaster for action on global heating and said the 143 governments that pledged to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030 at Cop26 held in Glasgow, had to urgently make good on their commitment.”

The Guardian, ‘Relentless’ destruction of rainforest continuing despite Cop26 pledge

“As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change, preserve wildlife, and support more than eight billion people, trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer. Yet the mass destruction of trees—deforestation—continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain of fuel, and materials for manufacturing and construction.

We need trees for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that they absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that human activities emit. As those gases enter the atmosphere, global warming increases, a trend scientists now prefer to call climate change.

There is also the imminent danger of disease caused by deforestation. An estimated 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases come from animals, and a major cause of viruses’ jump from wildlife to humans is habitat loss, often through deforestation.”

National Geographic, Why deforestation matters—and what we can do to stop it