Agriculture, Urban Growth are Depleting our Forests

This story was originally published in the GenZeal feature of LNP on Sunday, December 8, 2024.

By Jackson Rice ’25

Every year, 10 million hectares of forest worldwide are destroyed, mainly due to the effects of agriculture and urbanization.

Losing forests has massive repercussions when it comes to climate change. Trees provide many valuable benefits, such as producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants.

Almost 30% of carbon emissions are absorbed by trees, according to Boston University research, and trees are the second-highest producer of oxygen in the world. Trees don’t only absorb carbon dioxide — they also remove other pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, from the atmosphere.

Although trees have many positive effects on the environment, humans sacrifice them to prioritize their own needs over the Earth’s.

Whether it’s to grow crops or create grazing areas for livestock, more than 90% of deforestation is done to create space for some sort of resource production.

Through the advancement of technology, methods have been developed to lessen the amount of land needed for food production. “Regenerative agriculture” is a broad term that includes strategies to compact farmland and make it more efficient to increase its yield.

As of now, most farmlands release carbon into the atmosphere. But by keeping some sort of vegetation during the offseason to increase their diversity, farmlands can be turned into a carbon sink, which absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than is released.

The second largest cause of deforestation is urbanization. In order to support a large population in a compact area, large cities have to import food and supplies from other areas. This causes deforestation directly through the collection of lumber and indirectly by increasing the need for farmland and livestock.

Cities don’t just consume a lot of resources from other areas, but they also emit carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere.

Green infrastructure, which includes parks and green roofs, is a small way to mitigate the damage of an urban development on the environment it replaces.

Through advancements in agriculture and greener urbanization, deforestation can be stopped and climate change can be slowed.

Start a garden to grow your own food. Or find and support companies such as Hershey and Nestle, which are actively removing deforestation from their supply chains. Everyone can do their part to help save the world!

Sources:

https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation#:~:text=Globally%2C%20we%20deforest%20around%20ten%20million%20hectares%20of%20forest%20every%20year.&text=That’s%20an%20area%20the%20size,been%20produced%20on%20deforested%20land.&text=The%20scale%20of%20deforestation%20today,a%20way%20forward%20is%20possible.