10 Causes of Deforestation: The Roots of Forest Degradation

Removing trees from an area of forest and converting the land for other purposes is known as deforestation. The planet loses about 10 million hectares of forest every year.¹ This is an area larger than South Korea.² There is rarely a single direct cause of deforestation. Instead, multiple processes tend to conflate and result in deforestation.³ 

Deforestation is a key part of the climate change problem. Trees play a critical role in the carbon cycle. This is because they absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis.⁴ Clearing forests prevents them from removing this greenhouse gas from the Earth’s atmosphere.⁵ Cutting trees down, burning them or leaving them to rot also releases the carbon they have stored in their biomass.⁶ Deforestation produces about 10 per cent of all annual anthropogenic emissions. Therefore, reducing the causes of deforestation is fundamental to tackle global warming.⁷  

10 causes of deforestation

1. Agriculture for arable land

Converting forest to arable land is a more recent cause of deforestation. Agriculture as a whole accounts for at least 80 per cent of all deforestation, though this includes livestock as well.⁸ 

In South America, deforestation to make space for soybean production is extremely common. Argentina and Brazil grow almost half of the world’s soy. 90 per cent of it ends up as animal feed. This has resulted in great swathes of forest lost in the Gran Chaco and the Cerrado.⁹

Palm oil plantations

Similarly, palm oil in Southeast Asia has driven deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia and other rainforests.¹⁰ Half of all supermarket products contain palm oil.¹¹ It is an extremely efficient crop in terms of applicability and yield, but it requires high humidity and temperatures to grow.¹² More than 27 million hectares of palm oil plantations now cover the Earth’s surface to supply this important vegetable oil.¹³ 

2. Agriculture for livestock

The land required to provide the global demand for meat is enormous. 60 per cent of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs.¹⁴ Cows are particularly space-hungry, requiring acres upon acres of grazing land.¹⁵ This has led to cattle and livestock ranching becoming the greatest driver of deforestation in the Amazon.¹⁶

Despite promises to eradicate deforestation from their supply lines, the beef and dairy industry is contaminated by cattle laundering and other issues. This means that supermarkets and slaughterhouses – selling products from Amazon countries – cannot guarantee that they are free of deforestation and other illegal activities.¹⁷ 

3. Illegal logging

Another major cause of deforestation is illegal logging. Harvesting timber from protected areas or without a license can be extremely lucrative. The global trade in products originating from illegal logging is estimated at USD $152 billion per year. It attracts some of the world’s biggest organised crime groups.¹⁸ But, it also damages the economic wellbeing of local communities, responsible companies and governments trying to prevent the practice.¹⁹ 

Effects of deforestation

Illegal deforestation comprises a large proportion of all logging in the tropics. For example, it accounts for 60-80 per cent of all logging in the Brazilian Amazon, 90 per cent in Indonesia²⁰ and 65 per cent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.²¹ The nefarious practice clears forest, which is then occupied by farmers who take advantage of the open space to plant crops or graze cattle.²² It leads to important habitats being destroyed with resultant loss of biodiversity and soil erosion.²³ It can also contribute to conflicts with indigenous people, sparking violence and leading to human rights abuses.²⁴

4. Mining

Mining has a damaging impact on the environment and is a leading cause of deforestation. For mining to take place, trees and vegetation must be razed so that bulldozers and excavators can extract metals and minerals from the soil.²⁵ Between 2005 and 2015, nearly 10 per cent of Brazil’s Amazonian deforestation was due to mining activities.²⁶ 

Small-scale mining also degrades forests and pollutes the local area. Miners use toxic chemicals, such as cyanide, mercury and methylmercury.²⁷ They are frequently discharged into rivers, streams, bays and oceans, where they contaminate the water and kill living organisms.²⁸ Gold mining sites have been found to resist any regrowth, even three to four years later due to the pollution and topsoil erosion it causes.²⁹

5. Fires

Fire is the natural enemy of wood, and forest fires are on the rise thanks to humans. Fire seasons are becoming longer and more extreme as forests are degraded and the global temperature increases.³⁰ In 2019, more than one million hectares of forest were burned, and fires affected woodland from Siberia to the Amazon.³¹ 

In that year alone, the Amazon witnessed at least 76,000 fires burning. Humans started the majority. It was the worst year for forest fires since 2010, which had experienced a particularly bad drought. But 2019’s forests were not the accidental result of drought. They were deliberately set to remove vegetation from land to open it up for crops or cattle.³²

6. Woodfuel collection 

Though it affects forests at a much smaller level than agriculture, woodfuel collection nevertheless contributes to deforestation. 2.4 billion people worldwide rely on woodfuel for cooking. Without this resource to heat food and boil water, they risk starvation.³³ 

However, one-third of woodfuel is harvested unsustainably.³⁴ This is not a leading cause of deforestation but can contribute to degrading forests.³⁵ In fact, state agencies have manipulated woodfuel collection to suggest that it is destroying forests to exclude local communities from woodland.³⁶

7. Roads 

Building roads through forests results in further deforestation. Constructing roads does not greatly affect the overall tree cover of a forest.³⁷ However, they provide access to deeper and more remote areas.³⁸ Loggers use roads to reach previously inaccessible land and harvest the timber there, exacerbating forest degradation.³⁹ As much as 95 per cent of deforestation occurs within five kilometres of a road or navigable river.⁴⁰ Roads are therefore a notable indirect cause of deforestation.

8. Urbanisation

Urbanisation increases deforestation in two ways. Firstly, cities around the globe are growing by 1.4 million new inhabitants every week. Urban dwellers tend to receive better incomes and eat differently to their rural peers. For instance, they consume more products, and their diet tends to include more meat and processed food. This helps to fuel deforestation, as agricultural land to rear animals or grow food to feed them replaces forest.⁴¹

Simultaneously, the growth of urban populations results in cities themselves expanding. The area of urban zones worldwide is forecast to expand by more than 740,000 square miles between 2000 and 2030. As cities enlarge, they swallow up surrounding farmland and natural habitat, including woodland. As they convert the land from arable to urban, additional areas of farmland need to be created, thereby fuelling deforestation.⁴²

9. Poverty

Another indirect cause of deforestation is poverty. The Congo Basin in Central Africa is the second-largest rainforest in the world. It is also suffering from the ravages of deforestation. However, in contrast to Brazil and Indonesia where commercial farming ultimately fuels the destruction, poverty is a primary motivation of deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.⁴³

Small-scale clearance for subsistence agriculture is behind more than 80 per cent of the Congo’s deforestation. At its root is instability and conflict in the region, caused by ongoing wars and the availability of valuable resources. Communities are compelled to chop down trees as they seek to grow enough food to survive, and alternative opportunities are scarce.⁴⁴ 

10. State policies

State policies are the final cause of deforestation, and they can either cause or prevent deforestation. Brazil best exemplifies this over the past 20 years. Deforestation in the Amazon was wanton in the early 21st century, but began to decline from 2004.⁴⁵ Between 2005 and 2009, governmental conservation policies halved deforestation.⁴⁶ Brazil’s government significantly increased protected land.⁴⁷ They also singled out municipalities with high deforestation rates for increased monitoring and regulations.⁴⁸ Overall, between 2004 and 2012, deforestation declined by about 80 per cent.⁴⁹

However, from 2012 onwards, this progress began to reverse. The economic recession changed the government’s attitude towards the Amazon, and it has increasingly been reviewed as a resource to be exploited. Current President Jair Bolsonaro campaigned for the presidency in 2018 with an aggressive approach to deforestation. Since he came to power, deforestation rates have leapt by as much as 92 per cent.⁵⁰

Climate change

Governments can therefore alter the course of deforestation and have a huge impact on global warming and climate change. Likewise, everyday citizens can do this too, through the products they buy and the lifestyle they choose to lead. It is extremely important that we all value our remaining forests for the climate mitigation they provide and the ecosystems they protect, over their mere monetary worth. 

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