Home Causes Effects Reducing Deforestation

What Causes Deforestation?

Deforestation happens because of many different things. As the human population continues to grow, so does the need for resources from the trees, such as as fuelwood. Land is often cleared for agriculture as well, to grow food and plants like soy that are commonly used in products. Another threat to forests are illegal loggers, who avoid the rules regulating the production and trade of timber products. In some places, legal logging is rarer than illegal. Poor communities can be at risk when foreigners try to control the timber nearby, which can lead to repression and human rights violations. The same amount of trees lost to agriculture and illegal logging is lost to fires. Millions of acres of forests are damaged by fires each year, and many people use the flames to help them clear land on a large scale. Slash-and-burn agriculture is when famers burn down chunks of the forest to make more room for them to grow crops. The fires aren't always controllable, and they may spread throughout the forests. Although fires can be helpful, they can open forests to invasive species, threaten biological diversity, change water cycles and soil fertility, and destroy the livelihoods of the people who live in and around the forests.