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Causes Deforestation

The primary causes of deforestation include agriculture, with subsistence farming and commercial agriculture being the largest contributors, alongside logging and fuel wood removals. Other factors such as corruption, wealth inequality, population growth, urbanization, and climate change also play significant roles, while economic incentives often favor forest conversion over conservation. Over the past 30 years, the drivers of deforestation have shifted from subsistence activities to industrial factors, with commodity-driven deforestation becoming increasingly permanent, particularly in South America and Southeast Asia.

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16 views2 pages

Causes Deforestation

The primary causes of deforestation include agriculture, with subsistence farming and commercial agriculture being the largest contributors, alongside logging and fuel wood removals. Other factors such as corruption, wealth inequality, population growth, urbanization, and climate change also play significant roles, while economic incentives often favor forest conversion over conservation. Over the past 30 years, the drivers of deforestation have shifted from subsistence activities to industrial factors, with commodity-driven deforestation becoming increasingly permanent, particularly in South America and Southeast Asia.

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Causes

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)


secretariat, the overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture. Subsistence farming is
responsible for 48% of deforestation; commercial agriculture is responsible for 32%; logging is
responsible for 14%, and fuel wood removals make up 5%.
Experts do not agree on whether industrial logging is an important contributor to global
deforestation. Some argue that poor people are more likely to clear forest because they have no
alternatives, others that the poor lack the ability to pay for the materials and labour needed to
clear forest. One study found that population increases due to high fertility rates were a primary
driver of tropical deforestation in only 8% of cases.
Other causes of contemporary deforestation may include corruption of government
institutions, the inequitable distribution of wealth and power, population
growth and overpopulation, and urbanization. Globalization is often viewed as another root cause
of deforestation, though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization (new flows of labor,
capital, commodities, and ideas) have promoted localized forest recovery.
Another cause of deforestation is climate change. 23% of tree cover losses result from wildfires
and climate change increase their frequency and power. The rising temperatures cause massive
wildfires especially in the Boreal forests. One possible effect is the change of the forest
composition.

In 2000 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that "the role of
population dynamics in a local setting may vary from decisive to negligible", and that
deforestation can result from "a combination of population pressure and stagnating economic,
social and technological conditions".
The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make
forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. Many important forest
functions have no markets, and hence, no economic value that is readily apparent to the forests'
owners or the communities that rely on forests for their well-being. From the perspective of the
developing world, the benefits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go primarily to
richer developed nations and there is insufficient compensation for these services. Developing
countries feel that some countries in the developed world, such as the United States of America,
cut down their forests centuries ago and benefited economically from this deforestation, and that
it is hypocritical to deny developing countries the same opportunities, i.e. that the poor should not
have to bear the cost of preservation when the rich created the problem.
Some commentators have noted a shift in the drivers of deforestation over the past 30
years. Whereas deforestation was primarily driven by subsistence activities and government-
sponsored development projects like transmigration in countries
like Indonesia and colonization in Latin America, India, Java, and so on, during the late 19th
century and the earlier half of the 20th century, by the 1990s the majority of deforestation was
caused by industrial factors, including extractive industries, large-scale cattle ranching, and
extensive agriculture. Since 2001, commodity-driven deforestation, which is more likely to be
permanent, has accounted for about a quarter of all forest disturbance, and this loss has been
concentrated in South America and Southeast Asia.

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