Every year, humanity clears 10 million hectares of forests, an area equivalent to the size of Portugal.
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The loss of these ecosystems is devastating for wildlife and the billions of people who rely on forests for food, water and other essentials.
But deforestation has another, often-overlooked peril: it is stoking climate change. The felling of trees in tropical areas alone releases more than 5.6 billion tonnes of planet-warming greenhouse gasses every year. That is more than four times the combined total of aviation and shipping.
How does deforestation feed the climate crisis?
Trees are some of the planet’s most important warehouses of carbon, absorbing the element from the air via photosynthesis, and storing it in their leaves, roots and trunks.
But when trees decay or are burned, they release stored carbon into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. This is a greenhouse gas that traps heat near the Earth’s surface, raising temperatures and propelling climate change.
At the same time, the loss of trees means forests are no longer able to absorb as much carbon from the air as before, a double hit for the climate.
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