WHAT ARE THE MAIN CAUSES OF DEFORESTATION?

1) INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE
- industrial agriculture accounts for around 85% of deforestation worldwide. This amount is
going to increase as populations develop, meat-based diets increase and international markets
grow. The demand for wood products as well as agricultural products, including palm oil and
soybeans, have contributed to unsustainable levels of deforestation. The global demand for wood
products has risen significantly over the years. Timber is used for a wide range of products,
including paper, furniture, and building materials. The logging industry has grown substantially to
meet this demand, leading to the clearing of large areas of forested land.

2) Logging
- Logging is the number one cause of deforestation. It is estimated that more than 5,000 food
and wood products that we use come from our forests. Trees are removed from forests either
through selective, strip or clear-cutting methods for our lumber and paper products. Roughly 4
billion trees been cut around the world are for our paper industries. Seventy percent of forest
degradation in Latin America and subtropical Asia is caused by logging. In Indonesia, logging
operations destroyed about 40 percent of the trees left behind. In many third world countries,
logging operations have lead to a permanent loss of forest.

3) FIRE
- Fire is used to clear forested land for trees and vegetation, for agriculture, mining, roads and
homes. These fires not only kill our trees, they release carbon stored by the trees as carbon
dioxide into the air. Forest fires increase climate change and ocean acidification. We also lose
their future ability to absorb carbon and create oxygen.

4) Urbanisation and expansion of cities

- Urbanisation and the expansion of cities have a significant impact on deforestation,
contributing to the destruction of forested land across the globe. As urban areas grow,
they require more resources to sustain their populations, increasing demand for
products like beef and agricultural goods. This demand fuels deforestation both through
the conversion of forested land into housing or agricultural land and by increasing
pressure on forests to provide resources.

5) HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH

- As the world's population continues to grow, the demand for food, housing, and natural
resources also increases. This directly impacts deforestation as the need for more land
for agriculture and settlements fuels the conversion of forests into farmland and urban
areas.

6) Intensive crop cultivation

- Intensive crop cultivation is another leading cause of deforestation worldwide. This
farming practice involves the cultivation of crops on a large scale, with high inputs of
fertilisers, pesticides, and other chemical additives. This method is often used to produce
crops such as soybeans and palm oil, which are in high demand for use in animal feed
production, particularly livestock, and various other industries. farmers have cleared vast
forest areas to make way for soy and palm plantations, leading to a loss of forested lands