No more rainforest
Half of rainforests already destroyed
In 2000, half of the world’s rainforest had been wiped out. If we continue the rate of destruction, the rainforests will be gone at the end of the century, according to NASA.
Rainforests disappearing at double speed in just 15 years
The rate of tropical deforestation has almost doubled in 15 years. 2016 was the worst year ever with a total loss of tropical forest of 16.9 million hectares. 2017 was slightly “better” with 15.8 million hectares lost. An area almost the size of the state of Washington.
Not only rainforest is being cut down
On top of the disappearing rainforests, other types of forests are also being destroyed. In 2016, a world record of 30 million hectares of forests worldwide disappeared. That’s an area the size of Italy or Norway.
2017 just missed the record with a total loss of 29.4 million hectares.
1 BILLION hectares of forests cut down
In just 40 years, 1 billion hectares of forests have been cut down worldwide. That’s an area bigger than China.
Causes of the destruction of forests
The general reason for cutting down the world’s forest: The increasing world population and expanding consumer economy.
The world population is growing by 215,000 people a day and the number of consumers grows by 350,000 people a day.
World population
All of us, right now
Number of consumers
Globally, right now
To feed the growing demand from a growing population, trees are cut down for:
- Fuel
- Land for housing and urbanization
- Paper
- Furniture
- Palm trees (for palm oil)
- Room for cattle ranching
Effects of no rainforests
Up to 75 percent of life on the planet lives in rainforests. Most of these millions of species - many still undiscovered by humans - would be wiped out if the rainforest disappeared. There would simply be nowhere else to go.
Deforestation is a major source of climate change
About 300 billion tons of carbon is stored in trees. That’s 7 times the total annual global CO2 emissions. When trees are burned or decompose, the carbon is released into the atmosphere. Deforestation is the second largest human source of increased CO2 levels after the burning of fossil fuels.
Other bad stuff
It’s not only the rainforests that are disappearing. We are also running out of freshwater and fish in the world’s oceans.
Earth running out of freshwater
Unless water use is drastically reduced
Percent of assessed marine fish stocks overfished
Globally, right now
