The public expresses profound concern, sadness, and anger regarding the global deforestation crisis, particularly the Amazon, highlighting feelings of urgency for immediate action against environmental degradation. There is a notable sense of frustration towards governmental inaction and corporate greed. Many emphasize the need for personal accountability and collective efforts to avert looming ecological disasters, especially for future generations.

Governments

Corporations

Global Citizens

What is the top cause of deforestation?  I did a Google search and here is the AI summary- 

&gt;The leading cause of deforestation is industrial agriculture, primarily for raising cattle and growing crops like soybeans and oil palm, which together account for nearly 90% of global deforestation. Other significant causes include logging, mining, and urbanization. 

One more reason to boycott animal products, especially beef and dairy products, since raising cattle is  by far, the most damaging to the environment, deforestation, and biodiversity loss due to habitat loss.

EpicCurious

During the Bolsenaro regime in Brazil, a huge percentage of Brazilian rain forest was intentionally burned to raise cows for beef, and to grow soy. Brazil is one of the top exporters of both beef and soy. What is that soy used for? Basically all of it is used as farm animal feed! Almost 80% world wide is used that way.  Here is the AI summary of my Google search-



&gt;Approximately 90-95% of soy grown in Brazil is used for farm animal feed, with the vast majority of the rest used for domestic biodiesel production. While Brazil is the world's largest producer of soy, a small fraction is consumed directly by humans.



Only about 7% of soy world wide is consumed directly by humans.

[deleted]

&gt; we conclude from a statistical point of view that the probability that our civilisation survives itself is **less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario**

.

&gt; only civilisations capable of a switch from an economical society to a sort of “cultural” society in a timely manner, may survive

.

&gt; Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilisation (see Fig. 5). Making the situation even worse, we stress once again that it is unrealistic to think that the decline of the population in a situation of strong environmental degradation would be a non-chaotic and well-ordered decline. This consideration leads to an even shorter remaining time.

.

In a not totally unsurprising move the green anarchists seem to be right

From the linked paper :

&gt;The deforestation of the planet is a fact[2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6#ref-CR2). Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million Km2 of forests around the world were cut down[10](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6#ref-CR10) which amounts to 2 × 105 Km2 per year.

This "fact" draws on research by Hansen et al from 2013.

Here's Hansen in 2018 (linked paper was accepted/published in 2020) :

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0411-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0411-9)

&gt;We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally[5](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0411-9#ref-CR5)—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics. Global bare ground cover has decreased by 1.16 million km2

Besides, they didn't even account for afforestation in Hansen 2013. This is garbage research. They have weird author affiliations (department of electronic engineering??), jump to conclusions on complex issues, and talk about space colonization in the same paper that mainly discusses sustainability...like wtf? A guy from the department of electronic engineering is supposed to be an expert in assessing both forest cover and space colonization - as if it's reasonable to even discuss the two in the same paper.

Wut?

Nature is gone crazy? 

What incoherent mix from sci-fi-fantasy, outdated futurist bullshit is this? 

Kardashev scale and Dyson sphere?

That's ridiculous and outdated since it's invention. 
Come on, try to take less from whatever you took.

me-need-more-brain




The following submission statement was provided by /u/James_Fortis:

---

SS: the Earth's forests provide homes and immeasurable benefits for the climate, humans, and our fellow earthlings.  Without them, millions of species will go extinct.

We are clearcutting and intentionally burning much of what remains.  Deforestation, in conjunction with climate change, may cause Earth to reach tipping points for certain forests (such as the Amazon), where they will fundamentally transition into a different landscape.  Their ability to facilitate abundant life, sequester immense amounts of carbon, regulate local climate, etc. will soon be lost with our current trajectory.

Related to collapse because the elimination of most of the world's forests means a collapse of our ecosphere.  

Source: [https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation](https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation)

---

 Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1jlvrtc/drivers_of_deforestation_globally/mk6pdch/

StatementBot

I seriously want to cry when I see large swaths of trees removed for "progress".

Odd_Awareness1444

SS: the Earth's forests provide homes and immeasurable benefits for the climate, humans, and our fellow earthlings.  Without them, millions of species will go extinct.

We are clearcutting and intentionally burning much of what remains.  Deforestation, in conjunction with climate change, may cause Earth to reach tipping points for certain forests (such as the Amazon), where they will fundamentally transition into a different landscape.  Their ability to facilitate abundant life, sequester immense amounts of carbon, regulate local climate, etc. will soon be lost with our current trajectory.

Related to collapse because the elimination of most of the world's forests means a collapse of our ecosphere.  

Source: [https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation](https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation)

James_Fortis

"The single biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation is conversion to cropland and pasture, mostly for subsistence, which is growing crops or raising livestock to meet daily needs. The conversion to agricultural land usually results from multiple direct factors. For example, countries build roads into remote areas to improve overland transportation of goods. The road development itself causes a limited amount of deforestation. But roads also provide entry to previously inaccessible—and often unclaimed—land. Logging, both legal and illegal, often follows road expansion (and in some cases is the reason for the road expansion). When loggers have harvested an area’s valuable timber, they move on. The roads and the logged areas become a magnet for settlers—farmers and ranchers who [slash and burn](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/AmazonFire/) the remaining forest for cropland or cattle pasture, completing the deforestation chain that began with road building. In other cases, forests that have been degraded by logging become fire-prone and are eventually deforested by repeated accidental fires from adjacent farms or pastures."

[Source: Causes of Deforestation: Direct Causes](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Deforestation/deforestation_update3.php)

birdflustocks

"BuT bEeF iS sO gOoD" 🤡🤡 

Save the world, go vegan!

Icy-Rooster3182

The single most impactful thing you can do to fight for the earth is ironically one of the easiest: stop eating dead animals.

Burgers and Cars are killing us. It really is the Boomers' fault ... 

GrumpySquirrel2016

Thanks for sharing. Does this chart not include mining or does mining not compare in terms of scale compared to agriculture? Reason I ask if coz I’m from Western Australia and while agriculture has cleared a lot of our land, mining also has a big impact too.

KayaKulbardi

While this is a very alarming chart 😳 I wonder how true as a full story just from personal observation I live in a very rural area where it's a 45-minute drive to the nearest city And what I've seen over the last 25 years is that subdivisions will buy up the cattle land to build apartment complexes and then the cattle farmers will go by property further out( rinse and repeat) until there building subdivisions out where I am 

Could it possibly or potentially be less about them burning down the rainforest for cattle and more the catalyst, a first step in a process of deforestation

strange19023

Trophic pyramids work the way they do on land for a reason. You need 100 grams of plant protein for four grams of beef protein.

Without veganism we will just never stand a chance.

mushroomsarefriends

“May cause” us to reach tipping points? We’re there now. The last couple of years the Amazon has been a net carbon source. We’re toast. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03629-6

muddaFUDa

So all back to having to many humans on the planet?

InitialAd4125

Spongbov5

Orb-of-Muck

Some fruits &amp; nuts are trees as well.

pippopozzato

this is a weird chart. Beef/cattle but no other livestock are leading to deforestation?

CFUsOrFuckOff

How are forest fires burning millions of acres every year 0%?

ParabolicFatality

https://preview.redd.it/81tx9mbt9pre1.jpeg?width=1949&amp;format=pjpg&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=b0d3b44c643aa8d074fa399fa2ffb71585369aeb

Texas Farm Bureau sign on my way home.

auhnold

It's almost like being better to animals would alleviate a lot of our issues

____cire4____

\*Arrogant look of pork-eater superiority.\*

Flamingotough

Musk needs to cut beef subsidies or transfer it to vegetables!  Although doubting enough vegatables can be grown to feed everyone.

awooff

Not become depressed reading the news: mission impossible.

Antonioshamstrings

&gt;Indonesia plans to clear forests about the size of Belgium

That's a little smaller than the area of Maryland. The current Indonesian president wants Indonesia to be food independent within 4-5 years.

AudibleNod

This is not sustainable and takes generations to recover .

No-Information6622

You know why it is always countries like Indonesia and Brazil that kept cutting down forests?

Because we have already cut down ours a long time ago. Europe and China were mostly covered in forest.

image from internet for example:

[https://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/4a.html](https://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/4a.html)

so I think preserving the remaining forest are OUR responsibility, and we should all chip in so those countries are partly compensated for not developing those lands.

ffnnhhw

the_blackfish

MehItsAUserName1

Stop it you cunts.
While you're at it stop killing islanders

Consistent_Pepper_40

Follow the money trail to the rich selfish cunts ordering this.

Eborys

The world is lost already. 

And fixing it would require losing money/greed

It would be easier to solve world peace. No really, you can’t get rid of money. Trade is impossible to remove from humanity

CantAffordzUsername

Que video of orangutan fighting the bulldozer….


And….


Fuck.

Oralprecision

Snagmesomeweaves

How are we not talking more about deforestation?  Every year, approximately 15 billion trees are cut down.  At the same time, only about 1.9 billion trees are planted.  Rounding up, that only offsets it to about 13 billion.  With approximately 3 trillion trees in the world, that means that 0.5% of trees are cut down every year.  This doesn't even take into account the inevitable population growth, meaning that this number is going to increase even further.  Assuming it remains at the current rate, though, that still means that about 50% of trees will be gone in the next 100 years.

TangibleMalice

And this is another fine example of why the human race is doomed. Destroying the planet we need to survive

BroodLord1962

Ah Indonesia, we can always rely on you to do most selfish things (Indonesian here)

CantDrinkSoWhat

AzraelDumont91

Sad-Anything-9951

DustyComstock

It's not like we need these to breathe or survive or anything like that.

Inevitable_Dog2719

How can almost 200 countries allow 1 country to do something like this, that obviously affects the entire world?  
Not saying the other 200 don't do it, but still.

ElMerca

hellothisisjade

“the government will reforest 6.5 million hectares (16 million acres) of degraded and deforested land.” why the fuck don’t they just use that land instead?? God I hate this world so much.

RoyalPlush3

Sure fire way to ensure I’ll never ever spend €1 on any travel there. Nice.

Aranthos-Faroth

UltiGamer34

critxcanuck88

Los humanos son un virus, una plaga inmunda, malnacidos, ojalá otra pandemia elimine al 99.9% de la población mundial

EZX0

That's plenty of time to cut down a shit load of trees..

lovinnow

Wow 100 politicians promising to get something done!!! Suddenly I trust them a lot more for some reason!!/s

Welder1919

Nice! Problem solved! China signed right?…right?

Good thing they all flew out there with many different planes each in order to come to this decision! Definitely not a phone call operation here getting a bunch of geriatrics with no sense of modern society heading into the future. Great job, world leaders we did it. Now back to business...

PottedHeid

Too little, too late. 

And they won’t meet that goal anyways.

Uranus_Hz

Reports indicate that global deforestation rates remain alarmingly high, with significant areas lost primarily for agricultural expansion and extractive industries.

Global Deforestation Crisis

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

Parties Involved

What the people want