We need trees for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that they absorb not only the carbon dioxide that we exhale, but also the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that human activities emit.
The organization Amazon Conservation reports that destruction rose by 21 percent in 2020, a loss the size of Israel. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses recently have been on the rise. Since 1990, the world has lost 420 million hectares or about a billion acres of forest, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations-mainly in Africa and South America. Yet the mass destruction of trees-deforestation-continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain.įorests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change, preserve wildlife, and support billions of people, trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer.
