Causes of deforestation
The main reasons for deforestation (and desertification) are production of timber / wood, and making room for growing cattle, soy, and palm oil. We produce so much wood that we could give 370 kilos to everyone on the planet every year.
We use a lot of trees
Almost 5.5 billion cubic meters of wood are produced every year. With this amount of wood you could build a gigantic fleet of more than 200 million large Viking ships - enough to fit a third of the world's population.
Your weight in trees many times over
We produce almost 400 kilos of wood for everyone on the planet every year. But wood products are just a small part of the natural resources we extract from Earth to power the consumer society.
Tonnes of resources extracted from Earth
Globally, this year
...and numbers are growing
Demand for wood is expected to increase by 50 percent from 2005 to 2030. The most dramatic change will be the growing use of wood as a source of energy.
In the 50 years from 2010 to 2060, pulp and paper consumption is expected to increase by more than 100 percent and solid wood products between 28 and 61 percent. Such a growth will put additional pressure on the world's forests that are already disappearing at alarming speed.
Good wood
Sustainable products for all uses of wood exist - furniture, flooring, building materials, paper etc. These products have been produced using recycling and with respect to principles of responsible forest management.
