As we explore in more detail in our related article, countries tend to follow a predictable development in forest cover, a U-shaped curve.9 They lose forests as populations grow and demand for agricultural land and fuel increases, but eventually they reach the so-called forest transition point where they begin to regrow more forests than they lose. Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions. If poorer countries are cutting down forests to make food for rich consumers, then we should just stop trading these goods. Over the decade since 2010, the net loss in forests globally was 4.7 million hectares per year.1 However, deforestation rates were much significantly higher. This helps consumers understand what products they should be concerned about, but also allows us to target specific supply chains. They should keep their domestic reforestation targets in perspective with their net impact on global forests. The number of trees cut down in the Brazilian Amazon in January far exceeded deforestation for the same month last year, according to government satellite data. Web3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are cut down per year. But forest cover increases through reforestation. And with the growth of technological innovations such as lab-grown meat and substitute products, there is the real possibility that we can continue to enjoy meat or meat-like foods while freeing up the massive amounts of land we use to raise livestock. And to identify where deforestation is occurring; perhaps as important, show where forest loss is not deforestation. Are they causing more deforestation elsewhere than they are regenerating in forests at home? The world passed peaked deforestation in the 1980s and it has been on the decline since then we take a look at rates of forest loss since 1700 in our follow-up post. Deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Data on net forest change, afforestation and deforestation is sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations Forest Resources Assessment. National Inventory of Woodland and Trees, England (2001). To do this, they quantified where deforestation was occurring due to the expansion of croplands, pasture and tree plantations (for logging), and what commodities were produced on this converted land. Imagine over 100 large harvesters working non-stop. In the map we see their assessment of each countrys stage in the transition. Net importers of deforestation (shown in brown) are countries that contribute more to deforestation in other countries than they do in their home country. The paths between these end boxes indicate where emissions are being traded the wider the bar, the more emissions are embedded in these products. Several studies have assessed the stage of countries across the world.17 The most recent analysis to date was published by Florence Pendrill and colleagues (2019) which looked at each countrys stage in the transition, the drivers of deforestation but also the role of international trade.18 To do this, they used the standard metrics discussed in our theory of forest transitions earlier: the share of land that is forested, and the annual change in forest cover. We lost 150 million hectares an area half the size of India during that decade. Forest degradation measures a thinning of the canopy a reduction in the density of trees in the area but without a change in land use. 1000 years ago, 20% of Scotlands land was covered by forest. Crowther, T. W., Glick, H. B., Covey, K. R., Bettigole, C., Maynard, D. S., Thomas, S. M., & Tuanmu, M. N. (2015). And, we might place more value on preserving primary, native forests that havent yet been deforested over regrowing forests that have lost their previous ecosystems. How many trees are lost to deforestation each year? Mapping tree density at a global scale. Nicolas-Jacques Cont, an officer in Napoleon's army, invented the modern pencil by combining graphite and clay for lead durability. It breaks the change in forests into four stages, explained by two variables: the amount of forest cover a region has, and the annual change in cover (how quickly it is losing or gaining forest).15. The researchs results are Some interesting facts state that every second, 1.5 acres of wood are cut down, Luxembourg has the largest footprint at nearly three tonnes per person. According to CNN, each year over 1,000 plants and animal species go extinct due to deforestation and subsequent habitat loss. As mentioned above, about 15 billion trees are cut down each year. In contrast, most forest degradation two-thirds of it occurs in temperate countries. Classifying drivers of global forest loss. More than 7 million hectares of forest, or 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees, are cut down every year because of deforestation. Help us do this work by making a donation. Moving into the 20th century there was a stepwise change in demand for agricultural land and energy from wood. Improvements in agricultural productivity tends to both drive and follow economic growth. Deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions. But distilling changes to this single metric tree or forest loss comes with its own issues. The changes to the forest are often temporary and its expected that they will regrow. Improvements in crop yields mean the per capita demand for agricultural land continues to fall. See the distribution of global forests and which countries have the most forest cover. The researchs results are This is measured in hectares, which is equivalent to 10,000 m. Historical data pre-1990 is sourced from Michael Williams book, Deforesting the Earth: from prehistory to global crisis. The trees are not expected to regrow. If we can take advantage of these innovations, we can bring deforestation to an end. There are other aspects to consider. I have reconstructed long-term data using various studies which Ive documented here. estimate a 35% loss of global forest cover since 10,000. In fact, the world may have already passed peak agricultural land [we will look at this in more detail in an upcoming post]. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020: Main report. But international markets alone cannot fix this problem. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. Tropical forests and the changing earth system. First, it reiterates that deforestation is not a new problem: relatively small populations of the past were capable of driving a large amount of forest loss. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. [2] Only 36% of the world's rainforests remain intact. Given the current estimate of the total tree cover on the planet, that could equate to about 0.11% of trees being cut each year. But, overall, oilseeds and beef tend to top the list for most countries. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. The UN FAO estimate that 10 million hectares of forest were cut down each year. This number comes from the World Bank, which estimates that there are 3 trillion trees on the planet. How many trees are chopped down for Christmas? Estimates vary, but on average only 10-20% of carbon is lost during logging, and 10-30% from fires.27 In a study of logging practices in the Amazon and Congo, forests retained 76% of their carbon stocks shortly after logging.28 Logged forests recover their carbon over time, as long as the land is not converted to other uses (which is what happens in the case of deforestation). A new study published in Nature estimates the planet has 3.04 trillion trees. How many trees does IKEA cut down a Thats 6 billion hectares. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. The world loses almost six million hectares of forest each year to deforestation. As I mentioned earlier, 14% of deforestation today is driven by consumers in rich countries. They cut down their forests and replaced it with agricultural land long ago. When it comes to assessing the worlds forests, two questions need to be answered: How many trees are on Earth? and. This shifting agriculture category can be difficult to allocate between deforestation and degradation: it often requires close monitoring over time to understand how permanent these agricultural practices are. Increasing human dominance of tropical forests. Noriko Hosonuma et al. But they wanted to contribute to a more informed discussion about where to focus forest conservation efforts by understanding why forests were being lost. To investigate this question, researchers Florence Pendrill et al. Land, 9(5), 129. In just over 100 years the world lost as much forest as it had in the previous 9,000 years. Maxwell, S. L., Fuller, R. A., Brooks, T. M., & Watson, J. E. (2016). Explore more of our work on Forests and Deforestation, Anthropogenic Biomes: 10,000 BCE to 2015 CE, The course and drivers of the forest transition: the case of France, The relationships of population and forest trends, An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries, Increasing human dominance of tropical forests, Proactive conservation to prevent habitat losses to agricultural expansion, Forest transition theory and the reforesting of Scotland, Is there a forest transition? Imported emissions are also high for Taiwan, Belgium and the Netherlands at around one tonne. On the x-axis we have imported deforestation. Our World In Data is a project of the Global Change Data Lab, a registered charity in England and Wales (Charity Number 1186433). Since 2016, an average of 28 million hectares have been cut down every year. From the 1920s through to the 1980s, decadal losses quadrupled to almost 120 million hectares. In a previous article I showed that the types of food you eat matter much more for your carbon footprint than where it comes from this is because transport usually makes up a small percentage of your foods emissions, even if it comes from the other side of the world. This rapid swapping of green for gray is harmful to the people living in these spaces, and it sets cities up for long-term environmental decline, according to the scientists. Lets take a look at which countries are causing deforestation overseas and the size of this impact. 40% of traded deforestation ends up in high-income countries, meaning they are responsible for 12% of deforestation.29. For example, after we adjust for all the goods that the UK imports and exports, it caused more deforestation elsewhere than it did domestically. This number comes from the World Bank, which estimates that there are 3 trillion trees on the planet. How many trees are cut down each year? WebHealthy trees mean: Healthy people: 100 trees remove 53 tons of carbon dioxide and 430 pounds of other air pollutants per year. Americans cut down 15,094,678 Christmas trees in 2017, according to the most recent year of data from the U.S. Agriculture Department. They first lose lots of forest, but reach a turning point and begin to regain it again. The rate of forest loss changed a lot. A note on UN FAO forestry data Data on net forest change, afforestation and deforestation is sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations Forest Resources Assessment. Many consumers are concerned that their food choices are linked to deforestation in some of these hotspots. Please consult our full legal disclaimer. That means that each year, one percent of all trees are being destroyed. Countries such as Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are in the early transition phase and are losing forests quickly. If we sum countries imported deforestation by World Bank income group, we find that high-income countries were responsible for 40% of imported deforestation; upper-middle income for 25%; lower-middle income for 20%; and low income for 5%. To put this in perspective, that would be around one-sixth of the total carbon footprint of the average EU diet.36. It also estimates that 46% of the worlds trees have been cleared over the past 12,000 years. Just over one-quarter of global forest loss is driven by deforestation. But it was then that England reached its transition point and since then, forests have doubled in size. When in history did we lose it? Mather refers to an annual loss of less than 0.25% as a small loss. After we adjust for imports and exports, how much CO2 from deforestation is each country responsible for? This map shows the net change in forest cover across the world. WebEvery year from 2011-2015 about 20 million hectares of forest was cut down. Many countries have not only ended deforestation, but actually achieved substantial reforestation. You will notice in the chart that this was not only expanding into previously forested land, but also other land uses such as wild grasslands and shrubbery. A new study published in Nature estimates the planet has 3.04 trillion trees. This is because the latter only captures deforestation the replacement of forest with another land use (such as cropland). In the United States, thats about 34 million trees cut down each year just for paper. Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. Stage 2 The Early Transition phase is when countries start to lose forests very rapidly. The research says 15.3 billion trees are chopped down every year. 38. To quote them, they wanted to prevent a common misperception that any tree cover loss shown on the map represents deforestation. We then get high-income countries share of deforestation as: [40% of the 29% that is traded], which is equal to 12%. Some of the worlds poorest countries are still in the pre-transition phase. The total cut down so far is over 470 million trees since January 1st. Why? Web42 million trees are cut down each day. The average across the EU was 0.3 tonnes CO2 per person. The 11-month balance shows that 1,539,970 trees were cut down each day, which means 1,059 trees per minute or almost 18 trees per second. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the worlds land area, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. The data used in this chart comes from several sources. In most rich countries, across Europe, North America and East Asia, forest cover is increasing, whilst in many low-to-middle income countries its decreasing. theyre driving deforestation elsewhere; whilst many subtropical countries are partly cutting down trees to meet this demand from rich countries. The biodiversity of managed tree plantations which are periodically cut, regrown, cut again, then regrown is not the same. The carbon footprint of diets across the EU vary from country-to-country, and estimates vary depending on how much land use change is factored into these figures. Science, 361(6407), 1108-1111. 15 billion trees are cut down every year.19 The Global Forest Watch project using satellite imagery estimates that global tree loss in 2019 was 24 million hectares. This rapid swapping of green for gray is harmful to the people living in these spaces, and it sets cities up for long-term environmental decline, according to the scientists. But it can bridge between deforestation and degradation depending on the timeframe and permanence of these agricultural practices. For example, the average German generated half a tonne (510 kilograms) of CO2 per person from domestic and imported foods. Healthy communities: Tree-filled neighborhoods lower levels of domestic violence and are safer and more sociable. Countries with a negative change (shown in red) are losing more than theyre able to restore. According to the Environmental Paper Network, an estimated 30% of felled trees are used for paper products. When we treat these impacts equally we make it difficult to prioritize our efforts in the fight against deforestation. Deforesting the earth: from prehistory to global crisis. Why should we care most about tropical deforestation? Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. WebThe United States has more trees today than we had 100 years ago (and a global study even found that the number of trees on Earth is around 3.04 trillion, a much higher number than previously believed.) As we will see later, this is dominated by palm oil exports to Europe, China, India, North America and the Middle East. One of the reasons poorer countries clear forest to make room for farmland is that they achieve low crop yields. Increasing human dominance of tropical forests. People cut down 15 billion trees each year and the global tree count has fallen by 46% since the beginning of human civilization. That means that each year, one percent of all trees are being destroyed. For this reason, data sources including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization tend to aggregate annual losses as the average over five-year or decadal periods. Tree density in primary forests varies from 50,000-100,000 trees per square km, so the math would put this number at 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees cut down each year. Weve seen the five key drivers of forest loss. Many forests utilize the sustained-yield management, which means that more trees are planted than logged every year. High-income countries were the largest importers of deforestation, accounting for 40% of it. A note on UN FAO forestry data Data on net forest change, afforestation and deforestation is sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations Forest Resources Assessment. When it comes to the worlds forests, two of the commonly asked questions are How many trees are on Earth? and How many trees are cut down each year? The same is true of the United States; back in 1630 46% of the area of todays USA was covered by forest. This topic page can be cited as: All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. In Latin America and Asia the dominant driver of degradation was logging for products such as timber, paper and pulp this accounted for more than 70%. As to the number of trees this represents, its impossible to get an accurate count. The rate of deforestation is declining, but we still lost forests at a whopping 10 million hectares per year between 2015-2020. This interactive map shows deforestation rates across the world. University of Chicago Press.FAO (2020). Half of global forest loss occurred between 8,000BC and 1900; the other half was lost in the last century alone. This might paint a bleak picture for the future of the worlds forests: the United Nations projects that the global population will continue to grow, reaching 10.8 billion by 2100. This often comes at the cost of forests. We see one such transition in the chart: the forest loss in the temperate regions shown as the green part of the bars peaked much earlier than the global forest loss. 95% of this occurs in the tropics. How many trees are cut down each year in the Amazon rainforest? More than four times as much. Its the foods and products we buy, not where we live, that has the biggest impact on global land use. The breakdown of deforestation by region is shown in the chart. Then, using a physical trade model across 191 countries and around 400 food and forestry products, they could trace them through to where they are physically consumed, either as food or in industrial processes.Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., Kastner, T., Moran, D., Schmidt, S., & Wood, R. (2019). The bar chart just below shows the earths surface cover just after the end of the last ice age.3 10,000 years ago 57% of the worlds habitable land was covered by forest. Loss of Biodiversity: Forests are the only liveable habitat for a variety of species around the globe many of which have not even have been discovered. Some interesting facts state that every second, 1.5 acres of wood are cut down, The annual change is now positive. And its not just in forests eitherits also happening on farms, in cities, and on private property. Web3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are cut down per year. [4] Forests cover 4.06 billion hectares (just less than 31%) of Deforestation, reforestation, and development, Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change, Economic development and forest cover: evidence from satellite data, Deforestation displaced: trade in forest-risk commodities and the prospects for a global forest transition, Classifying drivers of global forest loss, What we know and dont know about Earths missing biodiversity, Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers, Tropical forests and the changing earth system, Types and rates of forest disturbance in Brazilian Legal Amazon, 20002013, Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions, Environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe. Why? Williams, M. (2003). What are the major impacts of mass deforestation and forest loss? The research says 15.3 billion trees are chopped down every year. Web42 million trees are cut down each day. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. Rome. But the solution is not so simple. The 11-month balance shows that 1,539,970 trees were cut down each day, which means 1,059 trees per minute or almost 18 trees per second. But not all of it is to produce products for local markets. It would be good if there was data available that would capture these additional aspects. After long periods of forest clearance in the past, most of todays richest countries are increasing tree cover through afforestation. They are smaller, and more temporary. Environmental Research Letters, 7(4), 044009. England is similar: in the late 11th century, 15% of the country was forested, and over the following centuries two-thirds were cut down. The latter will experience short-term environmental impacts, but will ultimately regrow. The consumption choices of people in these countries cause deforestation elsewhere in the world. Deforestation in Africa is mainly driven by local populations and markets; only 9% of its emissions are exported. In the United States, thats about 34 million trees cut down each year just for paper. Many countries have followed this classic U-shaped pattern. The amount of land used for agriculture land to grow crops as well as grazing land for livestock was expanding. Sometimes these restoration programmes pale in comparison to the deforestation theyre driving elsewhere. This demand for resources and land is not always driven by domestic markets. Science Advances, 3(4), e1601047. Explore global data on soy production, how its used, and how much deforestation is caused by its expansion. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(9), 501-510. Each year, an estimated 15 billion trees are cut down around the world. This emphasises two important points. What this showed was that although humans have been deforesting the planet for millennia, the rate of forest loss accelerated rapidly in the last few centuries. Thats more than the countrys CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, which are around 2.2 tonnes per person. The history of deforestation is a tragic one, in which we not only lost these wild and beautiful landscapes but also the wildlife within them. To understand this more recent loss of forest, lets zoom in on the last 300 years. That these countries have recently regained forests is also visible in the long-term forest trends above. We see very clearly that the large Brazilian footprint is driven by its domestic demand for beef. In their analysis of global forest loss, Philip Curtis and colleagues used satellite images to assess where and why the world lost forests between 2001 and 2015. Population growth meant that todays rich countries across Europe and North America needed more and more resources such as land for agriculture, wood for energy, and for construction.8. Environmental Research Letters, 14(5), 055003. Urbanization, the other driver of deforestation accounts for just 0.6%. Centuries ago it was mainly temperate regions that were driving global deforestation [we take a look at this longer history of deforestation in a related article]. The net change in forest cover measures any gains in forest cover either through natural forest expansion or afforestation through tree-planting minus deforestation. Forest transition theory and the reforesting of Scotland. Of carbon dioxide and 430 pounds of other air pollutants per year afforestation deforestation... Equally we make it difficult to prioritize our efforts in the chart in some of agricultural! Is now positive target specific supply chains been cut down each year 1,000... 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