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Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. [1] Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. [2]
An important consideration in such efforts is that forests can turn from sinks to carbon sources. [42] [43] [44] In 2019 forests took up a third less carbon than they did in the 1990s, due to higher temperatures, droughts [45] and deforestation. The typical tropical forest may become a carbon source by the 2060s. [46]
Prior to the arrival of European-Americans, about one half of the United States land area was forest, about 1,023,000,000 acres (4,140,000 km 2) estimated in 1630. Forest cover in the Eastern United States reached its lowest point in roughly 1872 with about 48 percent compared to the amount of forest cover in 1620.
In the years 2012–2022 China restored more than 70 million hectares (700,000 km 2) of forests. China committed to plant and conserve 70 billion trees by the year 2030 as part of the Trillion Tree Campaign. [80] The Jane Goodall Institute launched the Million Tree Project in Kulun Qi, Inner Mongolia to plant one million trees.
When a habitat is destroyed, the carrying capacity for indigenous plants, animals, and other organisms is reduced so that populations decline, sometimes up to the level of extinction. [ 39 ] Habitat loss is perhaps the greatest threat to organisms and biodiversity. [ 40 ]
As of 2013, Peru had more than 50% coverage of the country in forest. [153] An important part of this coverage is Peruvian Amazonia. According to the Ministry of Environment (Peru) between 2001 and 2018 the country lost 2.2 million hectares of forest, mostly in the Amazonian regions of Loreto, San Martín and Ucayali.
Hawaiian botanists say the inevitable loss from the wildfires across Maui and the Big Island will be felt deeply on the state’s landscape for years to come.
Degraded forest in Lahnberge, Germany: the soil is being washed out due to lack of vegetal cover, some trees are losing ground and they appear to be sick (photo by Andreas Trepte). Forest degradation is a process in which the biological wealth of a forest area is permanently diminished by some factor or by a combination of factors. "This does ...