Vanishing Forests
Forests around the world shrank by 30 million acres last year as human activity and wildfires brought about the fourth-largest amount of deforestation on record.
Most of the losses were the result of expanding agriculture and humankind’s other expanding footprints on the landscape, according to data compiled by the World Resources Institute.
A number of the deforestation hot spots were near the homes of indigenous people around the Amazon, many of whom had previously been unaffected by deforestation.
The institute says that forest loss was 30% greater in 2018 than the average from 2011 to 2017. It points out that the loss of pristine forest cover is only making climate change worse since the larger and older trees store carbon more efficiently.
No comments:
Post a Comment