Effects of Deforestation: Impact on the Environment

Deforestation has occurred to some extent for thousands of years.¹ However, since the 1950s, the size and scale of deforestation have accelerated massively.²

The tropics have suffered the greatest losses.³ In a mere 70 years, more than half of the world’s rainforests have been destroyed.⁴ The deforestation effects caused by this are extremely harmful to both the local environment and our planet.

What are the effects of deforestation?

Increased CO2 levels

Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change.⁵ Trees act as carbon sinks, absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases.⁶ They use this to grow, sequestering the carbon in their trunks, branches, leaves, roots, and the surrounding soil.⁷ This removes CO2 from the atmosphere and prevents it from trapping heat and contributing to global warming.⁸ When trees are cut down, left to rot or burned, they release the harmful CO2 again.⁹

Deforestation currently accounts for at least 20 percent of all carbon emissions globally.¹⁰

Soil erosion & landscape degradation

But, it’s not just the release of greenhouse gases that makes deforestation so harmful. It has destructive effects on the local environment too. For example, deforestation is a direct cause of topsoil erosion.¹¹

Indeed, in the past 50 years, half of the planet’s topsoil has been lost.¹² By removing plants, particularly trees, it leaves no roots to hold the soil in place.¹³ This leaves the soil at risk of being washed away by rain or blown away by the wind.¹⁴ With the topsoil goes the nutrients necessary to regenerate future plantlife.¹⁵

Desertification

Logging companies can also exacerbate this by compacting already thin soil with their heavy trucks.¹⁶ This further inhibits new plant growth.¹⁷ Moreover, as the nutrient-rich soil in a deforested area is washed away, it can enter waterways and disrupt food chains.¹⁸ It often leaves the area arid and can even lead to desertification.¹⁹

This is already occurring in the Amazon rainforest. The region has experienced severe droughts during the past decade due to deforestation.²⁰

What effects does deforestation have on the Amazon?

In the Amazon, deforestation is taking a heavy toll. Throughout the tropics, an area of primary rainforest – the size of 30 football pitches – is destroyed every minute.²¹ The world’s largest rainforest has lost at least 17 percent of its tree cover over the past 50 years.²² As mentioned, this is releasing vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere and reducing the efficacy of the remaining trees for sequestering further carbon.²³ But, it also has devastating repercussions for the flora and fauna that live there.

The Amazon is home to about ten percent of the world’s species.²⁴ At present, an estimated 137 plant, animal and insect species become extinct every day due to deforestation.²⁵ This means that by 2030, as much as 45 percent of the Amazon’s wildlife could be gone forever.²⁶ The extinction of one species affects all the others that rely on it. Ecosystems depend upon biodiversity, and with every species lost, we are endangering all those that remain.²⁷

Furthermore, deforestation in the Amazon threatens the home and livelihoods of the people who live there. More than 30 million people live across this vast region.²⁸ This includes 420 Indigenous communities who have inhabited the area for thousands of years.²⁹ They depend upon the Amazon for their food, water, and employment.³⁰ Many of these forest communities and smallholder farmers are already extremely poor.³¹ Deforestation undermines the health of the rainforest and subsequently threatens the resources they rely upon to survive, such as açaí and Brazil nuts.³²

There are, therefore, compelling environmental, medical, and social reasons to protect and enhance the Amazon and other rainforests at all costs.

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