Forests And Deforestation

Forest Area

In just over 100 years the world has lost as much forest as it had in the previous 9,000 years – a loss of forested area the size of the United States.

Since the Ice Age we have lost 1/3rd of our Forests, half of this happened in the last century.
Forests now occupy only 1/4th (26%) of the Land on our planet.

Breakdown of global forest area by world region

Europe, due to forests across Russia, holds the greatest share of global forests (25%), followed by South America which has one-fifth of forest area, then Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Russia is home to the largest area of forest – 815 million hectares.
Brazil, the United States, Canada, China, Australia and Congo also have a large forest cover – more than 100 million hectares each.
India has about 24.3% (2020) forest cover down from 27.3% in 1880.

Tree Density

It is estimated that there are approximately 3.04 trillion trees in the world (Nature, 2015).
It is also estimated that over 15 billion trees are cut down each year, and the global number of trees has fallen by almost half (46%) since the start of human civilization (Nature, 2015).
India has 28 trees per capita (2014), this number for Canada is 8953, Argentina – 1202, Russia – 4461, USA – 716 and Tanzania – 410.

Loss of our Forests
(Data from UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Forest Resources Assessment.)

The turn of the 20th century is when global forest loss reached the halfway point: half of total forest loss occurred from 8,000BC to 1900; the other half occurred in the last century alone.
From 1700 to 1850, 19 million hectares were being cleared every decade. That’s around half the size of Germany.
From 1850 to 1920, losses were around 50% higher at 30 million hectares per decade –that’s losing a forested area the size of Italy.
It was predominantly temperate forests (forests in Europe and the US) that were being lost at this time. Population growth meant that today’s rich countries across Europe and North America needed more and more resources such as land for agriculture, wood for energy, and for construction.
Into the 20th century deforestation rates accelerated. From the 1920s through to the 1980s, decadal losses quadrupled to almost 120 million hectares. That’s equivalent to the area of South Africa. This increase was mostly driven by tropical deforestation as countries across Asia and Latin America followed the path of Europe and North America.
Global deforestation reached its peak in the 1980s. We lost 150 million hectares – an area half the size of India – during that decade. Clearing of the Brazilian Amazon for pasture and croplands was a major driver of this loss.
Since then, deforestation rates have steadily declined, to 78 million hectares in the 1990s; 52 million in the early 2000s; and 47 million in the last decade.
Nearly half (47%) of France was forested 1000 years ago; today that’s just under one-third (31.4%). In United States - in 1630, 46% of the area of today’s USA was covered by forest. Today that’s just 34%.
The Global Forest Watch project – using satellite imagery – estimates that global tree loss in 2019 was 24 million hectares. That’s an area the size of the United Kingdom.

Causes of Deforestation

Tropical deforestation – between 2010 and 2014 – was responsible for 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. That was 6.5% of global CO2 emissions.

Deforestation over the years has been driven by the continued expansion of land for agriculture and NOT for urban development.
Urban land accounts for just 1% of global habitable land so humanity’s biggest footprint is due to what we eat, not where we live.
Every year the world loses around 5 million hectares of forest. 95% of this occurs in the tropics. At least three-quarters of this is driven by agriculture – clearing forests to grow crops, raise livestock and produce products such as paper.
Today half of global habitable land is used for farming.
In 2019, the world lost 5.4 million hectares to deforestation, with Brazil and Indonesia accounting for 52% of it.
The expansion of pasture for beef production, croplands for soy and palm oil, and conversion of primary forest to tree plantations for paper and pulp have been the key drivers of this.
The expansion of agricultural land in Africa accounted for around 17.5% of deforestation.

Beef, soy and palm oil are responsible for 60% of tropical deforestation

The expansion of pasture land to raise cattle for beef production was responsible for 41% of tropical deforestation. That’s 2.1 million hectares every year – about half the size of the Netherlands.
Palm oil and Soy are categorised as ‘oilseeds’, which also include a range of smaller commodities such as sunflower, rapeseed, and sesame. They drove 18% of deforestation.
The third largest driver is forestry products, which is dominated by paper but also includes timber. Across Europe and North America, forestry products mainly come from managed plantation forests that have been established for a long period of time, or are grown on previously un-forested land but in most tropical countries, like Indonesia, forestry products come from the logging of primary rainforests or their replacement with plantations.

Which countries are causing deforestation overseas?

Net importers of deforestation are countries that contribute more to deforestation in other countries than they do in their home country. The consumption choices of people in these countries cause deforestation elsewhere in the world.
After we adjust for all the goods that the UK imports and exports, it caused more deforestation elsewhere than it did domestically. It was a net importer. Brazil, in contrast, caused more deforestation domestically in the production of goods for other countries than it imported from elsewhere. It was a net exporter.
Europe and North America are net importers of deforestation i.e. they’re driving deforestation elsewhere; whilst many subtropical countries are partly cutting down trees to meet this demand from rich countries.
High-income countries were the largest ‘importers’ of deforestation, accounting for 40% of it. This means they were responsible for 12% of global deforestation.

Deforestation due to Soy

More than three-quarters (77%) of global Soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products such as tofu, soy milk, edamame beans, and tempeh. The idea that foods often promoted as substitutes for meat and dairy – such as tofu and soy milk – are driving deforestation is a common misconception.
Most of the world’s Soy comes from only two countries: the US and Brazil. Combined, they account for more than two-thirds (69%) of global soy production.In fact, they produce almost exactly the same amount: in 2018 the US produced 123 million tonnes, and Brazil 118 million tonnes. The other major producer is Argentina, which accounts for 11% (at 40 million tonnes).
More than three-quarters (77%) of Soy is used as feed for livestock.
There has been a steep rise in the demand for processed Soy since 1990 – animal feed, biofuels and vegetable oil. By 2013, it had increased from 88 million to 227 million tonnes. Over this period, demand for human food products such as tofu and soy milk increased by only 3 million tonnes (from 7.4 to 10.7 million).
Global meat production has more than tripled over the last 50 years. This increase has been most marked for poultry – the largest consumer of Soy feed.

Deforestation due to Palm Oil

Palm oil production has increased rapidly over the past 50 years. In 1970, the world was producing only 2 million tonnes. This is now 35 times higher: in 2018 the world produced 71 million tonnes.
Palm oil is a very productive crop - it produces 36% of the world’s oil, but uses less than 9% of croplands devoted to oil production.
Palm oil is a versatile product which is used in a range of products across the world:

Foods: over two-thirds (68%) is used in foods ranging from margarine to chocolate, pizzas, breads and cooking oils.
Industrial applications: 27% is used in industrial applications and consumer products such as soaps, detergents, cosmetics and cleaning agents.
Bioenergy: 5% is used as biofuels for transport, electricity or heat.

The global market for Palm oil production is dominated by Indonesia and Malaysia. In 2018, the world produced 72 million tonnes of Palm oil. Indonesia accounted for 57% of this (41 million tonnes), and Malaysia produced 27% (20 million tonnes) a total of 84% of global palm oil production.
Since 1980 the amount of land the world uses to grow palm has more than quadrupled, from 4 million to 19 million hectares in 2018.
19 million hectares might sound like a lot of land. But we should consider this in the context of all land used to grow oilcrops. The world devotes more than 300 million hectares for oilcrop production. Palm oil accounts for 6% of this land use, which is small when we consider that it produces 36% of the oil.
In Indonesia from 2001 to 2016 Palm oil plantations were the largest driver of deforestation over this period, accounting for 23%. However, we also see that its role has declined over the last decade: there was a peak in 2008–2009, when it reached almost 40% of Indonesia’s deforestation, but it has since declined to less than 15%.
A global study of palm-driven deforestation concluded that Palm expansion has played a significant role in Deforestation in Southeast Asia - 45% of oil Palm plantations came from areas that were forests in 1989.In Indonesia this was 54% and in Malaysia, 40%.

(Data on net forest change, afforestation and deforestation is sourced from: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (UN FAO) Forest Resources Assessment and Our World in Data - since year-to-year changes in forest cover can be volatile, the UN FAO provide this annual data averaged over five-year periods.)