Deforestation involves the removal of forests to make way for other land uses such as agriculture, ranching, or urban development. It occurs for several reasons including harvesting trees for fuel or building materials and clearing land for livestock grazing or crop cultivation. The main causes of deforestation are agricultural expansion, commercial logging, mining, and urbanization. Deforestation has significant environmental impacts such as releasing carbon into the atmosphere, reducing biodiversity, increasing soil erosion, and disrupting the water cycle. While it provides some short-term economic gains, deforestation reduces long-term economic productivity and ecosystem services. Efforts to control deforestation include monitoring with aerial photos or satellite imagery and sustainable forest management practices.

1. Group # 1
Deforestation
Submitted To :
Submitted By :

2. Index
• 1.Introduction
• 2.Causes
• 3.Environmental effects
• 4.Economic impact
• 5.Rates of Deforestation
• 6.Deforestation in India
• 7.Control
• 8.References

3. INTRODUCTION
• Deforestation, clearance, clearcutting or clearing is the removal of a forest or
stand of trees from land which is then converted to a non-forest use.
Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban
use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About
31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests.
• Deforestation can occur for several reasons: trees can be cut down to be used
for building or sold as fuel (sometimes in the form of charcoal or timber), while
cleared land can be used as pasture for livestock and plantation. The removal
of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in habitat damage,
biodiversity loss, and aridity. It has adverse impacts on bio sequestration of
atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also been used in war to
deprive the enemy of vital resources and cover for its forces.
• Modern examples of this were the use of Agent Orange by the British military
in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency and by the United States military in
Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

4. The Data behind Deforestation
• Forests cover approximately 31% of the total land surface of the Earth.
• Tropical forests harbor over half of all land-based animal and plant species in
the world.
• Between the years 2000 and 2012, over 568 million acres of forest has been
claimed by deforestation.
• Approximately 9 million acres of virgin tropical forest was cut down in the
year 2018.
• The Amazon rainforest, which is the source of 20% of the world’s oxygen
supply, loses approximately 1.32 acres of its area every minute due to
deforestation.

5. CAUSES
Agriculture:
• Conversion of forests to agricultural land to feed growing needs of people.
There are an estimated 300 million people living as shifting cultivators
who practice slash and burn agriculture and are supposed to clear more
than 5 lakh ha of forests for shifting cultivation annually.
Commercial logging:
• (Which supplies the world market with woods such as meranti, teak,
mahogany and ebony) destroys trees as well as opening up forest for
agriculture. Cutting of trees for fire wood and building material, the heavy
lopping of foliage for fodder and heavy grazing of saplings by domestic
animals like goals.
Mining:
• This causes environmental impacts like erosion, formation of sinkholes,
loss of biodiversity, and contamination of soil, groundwater and surface
water by chemicals from mining processes. In some cases, additional
forest logging is done in the vicinity of mines to increase the available

7. Increase in population:
• The needs also increase and utilize forests resources. To meet
the demands of rapidly growing population, agricultural lands
and settlements are created permanently by clearing forests.
Urbanization and industrialization:
• Since Industrialization and Urbanization needs land to grow,
so major amount of forest lands are cut in order to promote
Industrialization and Urbanization. This creates harmful effect
on environment and forest ecological balance.
Construction of dam reservoirs:
• For building big dams, large scale devastation of forests takes
place which breaks the natural ecological balance of the
region. Floods, droughts and landslides become more
prevalent in such areas. Forests are the repositories of
invaluable gifts of nature in the form of biodiversity and by
destroying these we are going to lose these species even
before knowing them. These species could be having
marvelous economic or medicinal value. These storehouses of
species which have evolved over millions of years get lost due
to deforestation in a single stroke.

8. Forest fires:
They may be natural or manmade, and cause huge forest
loss.
Overgrazing:
Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive
grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient
recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in
poorly managed
overpopulations of
agricultural applications,
native or non- native wild
or by
animals.

9. • Rainforests are widely believed by laymen to contribute a significant
amount of the world's oxygen, although it is now accepted by scientists
that rainforests contribute little net oxygen to the atmosphere and
deforestation has only a minor effect on atmospheric oxygen levels.
• However, the incineration and burning of forest plants to clear land
releases large amounts of CO2, which contributes to global warming.
Scientists also state that tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tons of
carbon each year into the atmosphere.
Environmental effects on Atmosphere
:

10. • The water cycle is also affected by deforestation. Trees extract groundwater
through their roots and release it into the atmosphere. When part of a forest is
removed, the trees no longer transpire this water, resulting in a much drier
climate.
• Deforestation reduces the content of water in the soil and groundwater as well
as atmospheric moisture. The dry soil leads to lower water intake for the trees
to extract. Deforestation reduces soil cohesion, so that erosion, flooding and
landslides ensue..
Environmental effects on
hydrological

12. • Due to surface plant litter, forests that are undisturbed have a minimal rate of
erosion. The rate of erosion occurs from deforestation, because it decreases the
amount of litter cover, which provides protection from surface runoff.
• The rate of erosion is around 2 metric tons per square kilometer. This can be an
advantage in excessively leached tropical rain forest soils. Forestry operations
themselves also increase erosion through the development of (forest) roads and
the use of mechanized equipment.
• Soils are reinforced by the presence of trees, which secure the soil by binding
their roots to soil bedrock. Due to deforestation, the removal of trees causes
sloped lands to be more susceptible to landslides.
Environmental effects
on soil

13. • Since the tropical rainforests are the most diverse ecosystems on Earth and
about 80% of the world's known biodiversity could be found in tropical
rainforests, removal or destruction of significant areas of forest cover has
resulted in a degraded environment with reduced biodiversity.
• soilIt has been estimated that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect
species every single day due to rainforest deforestation, which equates to
50,000 species a year. Others state that tropical rainforest deforestation is
contributing to the ongoing Holocene mass extinction.
Environmental effects on
Biodiversity

14. • Deforestation facilitates the generation of raw material for a wide range of
industries. Examples include the agriculture industry, the wood industry,
and the construction industry.
• However, the overexploitation of wood and timber can have a negative
impact on the economy. The short-term economic gains made from
deforestation are accompanied by reduced long-term productivity.
• For example, overenthusiastic timber harvesting from a forest area may
increase the overall output temporarily, but the declining forest area will
eventually cause the harvest to decline. The overall forest output is greatly
reduced by such practices.
• According to some reports, the global GDP may see a 7% decline by the
year 2050 due to deforestation and other factors.
• Therefore, a sustainable approach to the usage of forest resources is ideal
for the economy.
Economic
impact

16. • There are multiple methods that are appropriate and reliable for reducing and
monitoring deforestation. One method is the “visual interpretation of aerial
photos or satellite imagery that is labor-intensive but does not require high-level
training in computer image processing or extensive computational resources”.
• Another method includes hot-spot analysis (that is, locations of rapid change)
using expert opinion or coarse resolution satellite data to identify locations for
detailed digital analysis with high resolution satellite images.
Control
Monitoring Deforestation

17. • Efforts to stop or slow deforestation have been attempted for many centuries
because it has long been known that deforestation can cause environmental
damage sufficient in some cases to cause societies to collapse.
Control
Forest management

18. References
 Chakra arty, Summit; Ghost, S. K.; Suresh, C. P.; Dye, A. N.; Shula, Goal. "Causes,
Effects and Control Strategies, Global Perspectives on Sustainable Forest
Management" (PDF). Intec. Intec. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
 Clemens, K. E.; Bahr, A.; Ovaskainen, O.; Dahlberg, A.; Ebla, A.; Laplander, H.;
Stolid, J.; Finlay, R. D.; Wardle, D. A.; Lindale, B. D. (2013). "Roots and Associated
Fungi Drive Long-Term Carbon Sequestration in Boreal Forest". Science. 339 (6127):
1615–8. Bibcode:2013Sci...339.1615C. doi:10.1126/science.1231923.
PMID 23539604.
 Deforestation causes global warming, FAO
 Fear side, Philip M.; Laurence, William F. (2004). "Tropical Deforestation and
Greenhouse-Gas Emissions". Ecological Applications. 14 (4): 982. doi:10.1890/03-
5225. "Foundation Chirac ' Deforestation and desertification".
 Find ell, Kirsten L.; Knutson, Thomas R.; Millie, P. C. D. (2006). "Weak Simulated
Extra tropical Responses to Complete Tropical Deforestation". Journal of Climate. 19
(12): 2835–2850. Bibcode:2006JCli...19.2835F. Cutesier 10.1.1.143.9090.
doi:10.1175/JCLI3737.1.
 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group I Report "The Physical Science
Basis", Section 7.3.3.1.5. p. 527
 Memoir, Fiona (18 July 2006). "The Effects of Deforestation on our Environment
Today". Panorama. TakingITGlobal.
 NASA Data Shows Deforestation Affects Climate In The Amazon. NASA News. 9 June
2004.
 Prentice, I.C. "The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide". IPCC
 Van Deer Warf, G. R.; Morton, D. C.; Defies, R. S.; Olivier, J. G. J.; Kasibhatla, P.
S.; Jackson, R. B.; Collate, G. J.; Anderson, J. T. (2009). "CO2 emissions from forest
loss". Nature Geosciences. 2 (11): 737–738. Bibcode:2009NatGe...2..737V.
doi:10.1038/ngeo671.
 Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Sheila; Rubio Alvarado; Laura Xiamen. "Why are we seeing
"REDD"?". Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.
Archived from the original on 25 December 2007. Retrieved 14 November 2016.

19. Thank You