Deforestation

Test your knowledge with free interactive questions on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.

Land-use Cover

As population increases and development continues, the demand for resources increases. Deforestation to meet demands for timber and to clear land for agriculture is a key issue.

Demand

Due to population increase and increase in economic development, the demands for resources have increased.
Climate change leading to changes in weather patterns has led to an increase in the demand for water resources in some areas.
Climate change has also put pressure on food resources.

Deforestation: carbon

Deforestation has major impacts on the terrestrial carbon stores.
Firstly there is a reduction in photosynthesis to absorb the CO₂. Less absorption of CO₂ means a reduction of carbon in the stores, and more in the atmosphere.
Secondly, the amount that was stored in biomass above and below ground decomposes to release more CO₂.

Deforestation: the water cycle

Deforestation leads to a reduction in interception and infiltration. -This, in turn, increases surface runoff and soil erosion, leading to an increased risk of flooding.
Without the vegetation returning the water to the atmosphere by evapotranspiration, a reduction in annual rainfall can be seen.

Afforestation

Vegetation, especially trees, are a particularly significant carbon store due to sequestering carbon through photosynthesis.
Afforestation refers to the planting of trees on land that has either been previously deforested or otherwise not vegetated.
This instantly counter-acts all of the negative impacts of deforestation.
Afforestation promotes infiltration and percolation in order to regulate the water cycle.
Afforestation also helps promote a reduction in CO₂ levels, due to increase in carbon store and the sequestering of carbon.

Forest Loss

The amount of forest that is lost is closely related to the current economic development of a nation.

Forest loss

Due to the rising demand for them, biofuels like palm oil are being grown in deforested regions.
Tropical rainforest such as that in Southeast Asia has been deforested in order to form large-scale palm oil plantations.
This process leads to massive amounts of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

Implications for humans

Palm oil production is required to meet the currently increasing demand.
However, local communities including smallholders and indigenous people have been forced to migrate due to the impacts.
This has economic implications for those who have been previously dependent on the rainforest for their resources and income.
For the indigenous population, it threatens their way of life.
This has led to over 700 conflicts over land in 2016, between the palm oil industry and other land users.

Forest protection

The UN’s data has shown that only High Income Countries (HICs) are seeing an increase in forested land.
The annual net loss of rainforest is half that of the 1990s because of an increase in the hectares gained (3.3 million between 2010 and 2015).
HICs tend to have temperate forest which is seeing an increase in forested area, whilst tropical forest regions have the highest deforestation (highest in LICs).

Kuznet's Curve Model

Kuznet's curve model clearly shows that the amount of forest that is lost is closely related to the current economic development of a nation.

Kuznet's curve 1

The Kuznet curve shows how environmental degradation changes as economic growth increases.
It is first seen that as economic growth increases, the environmental degradation increases. This is because as an area become richer it will use its finances to better exploit its natural environmental advantages.
These natural resources will further support the economic development of an area.

Kuznet's curve 2

The country will then hit a point where environmental concern leads to actions being taken to ensure the protection of the environment.
This is when there is a change in the environmental degradation but GDP can continue to increase.
As environmental degradation decreases, the country can still continue to improve in terms of GDP. This is because new industries can be developed, including sustainable energy, eco-tourism and recycling.

E.g. Costa Rica

An example of where this has clearly been done is Costa Rica.
There was mass deforestation between the 1950s and 1980s. This was followed by efforts to reduce deforestation and establish eco-tourism.
Costa Rica is now considered the benchmark for high quality eco-tourism worldwide.