To put this in perspective, that would be around one-sixth of the total carbon footprint of the average EU diet.36. The Asia-Pacific region predominantly Indonesia and Malaysia export a higher share: 44%. Williams, M. (2003). This rapid swapping of green for gray is harmful to the people living in these spaces, and it sets cities up for long-term environmental decline, according to the scientists. Given the current estimate of the total tree cover on the planet, that could equate to about 0.11% of trees being cut each year. Do rich countries import deforestation from overseas? Across temperate forests the world gained 6 million hectares in the last decade. The data used in this chart comes from several sources. 2020. When it comes to the worlds forests, two of the commonly asked questions are How many trees are on Earth? and How many trees are cut down each year? Global Environmental Change, 15(1), 23-31. As we explore in more detail in our related article, countries tend to follow a predictable development in forest cover, a U-shaped curve.9 They lose forests as populations grow and demand for agricultural land and fuel increases, but eventually they reach the so-called forest transition point where they begin to regrow more forests than they lose. Some countries within this group are still far behind peak deforestation: without concerted effort to protect these forests it could be many decades before forests in those countries approach the transition point [as we show in a related post].10. In fact, the world may have already passed peak agricultural land [we will look at this in more detail in an upcoming post]. Environmental Research Letters, 14(5), 055003. The amount of land per person that was needed to produce enough food was not small in fact, it was much larger than today. The United Nations, as well as experts at the World Wildlife Fund and Global Forest Watch, found that one million animals are in danger of extinction as a result of how much deforestation has occurred. Geographical Journal, 166(1), 2-13. The United States is the worlds largest consumer (and second largest producer, after Canada) of forest products. Approximately 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are being cut each year according to a report referenced on the Rainforest Action Networks website (RAN) and other publications. You see that of the 14.9 billion hectares of land on the planet, only 71% of it is habitable the other 29% is either covered by ice and glaciers, or is barren land such as deserts, salt flats, or dunes. Given the current estimate of the total tree cover on the planet, that could equate to about 0.11% of trees being cut each year. This rapid swapping of green for gray is harmful to the people living in these spaces, and it sets cities up for long-term environmental decline, according to the scientists. Because people are starting to see how climate change affects trees. See which countries are gaining forest though natural forest expansion and afforestation. Before we look at trends in deforestation across the world specifically, its useful to understand the net change in forest cover. The story of both soy and palm oil are complex and its not obvious that eliminating these products will fix the problem. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. (2012) gathered this data from a range of sources including country submissions as part of their REDD+ readiness activities, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) country profiles, UNFCCC national communications and scientific studies. But it was then that England reached its transition point and since then, forests have doubled in size. There is some bad news, though: that number is likely to increase by 20% by 2023. University of Chicago Press. How many trees does IKEA cut down a Healthy environment: One hundred mature trees catch about 139,000 gallons of rainwater per year. How Many Trees are Cut down for Paper Each Year . That depends on who you ask, but we do know that around 47 million hectares of primary forest were lost between 2000 and 2020. The amount of land used for agriculture land to grow crops as well as grazing land for livestock was expanding. In 2012 the mid-year of this period global emissions from fossil fuels, industry and land use change was 40.2 billion tonnes. England is similar: in the late 11th century, 15% of the country was forested, and over the following centuries two-thirds were cut down. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(9), 501-510. Rural Sociology, 63(4), 533-552. To investigate this question, researchers Florence Pendrill et al. The number of trees cut down in the Brazilian Amazon in January far exceeded deforestation for the same month last year, according to government satellite data. Lets start at the top. But we also need to know what products are driving this. But when forests are cut, burned or otherwise removed they emit carbon instead of absorb carbon. As mentioned above, about 15 billion trees are cut down each year. As to the number of trees this represents, its impossible to get an accurate count. [2] Only 36% of the world's rainforests remain intact. For example, the US imported 64,000 hectares of deforested land, but increased its domestic forest area by 275,000 hectares. (2010) looked at the primary drivers of deforestation and degradation across tropical and subtropical countries specifically.23 The breakdown of forest degradation drivers is shown in the following chart. The researchs results are Nicolas-Jacques Cont, an officer in Napoleon's army, invented the modern pencil by combining graphite and clay for lead durability. By Georgina Rannard. A new study published in Nature estimates the planet has 3.04 trillion trees. Pre-1961 land use is sourced from the work of Ellis et al. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 753-765. If we can take advantage of these innovations, we can bring deforestation to an end. Please consult our full legal disclaimer. Most tropical deforestation is driven by demand for products in domestic markets. If we look at where countries are in their transition today we can understand where we expect to lose and gain forest in the coming decades. But it can bridge between deforestation and degradation depending on the timeframe and permanence of these agricultural practices. Scheffers, B. R., Joppa, L. N., Pimm, S. L., & Laurance, W. F. (2012). It also estimates that 46% of the worlds trees have been cleared over the past 12,000 years. They first lose lots of forest, but reach a turning point and begin to regain it again. How do these two measures compare? Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change. The world passed peaked deforestation in the 1980s and it has been on the decline since then we take a look at rates of forest loss since 1700 in our follow-up post. Today thats just 34%. How many trees are cut down each year? Since then, deforestation rates have steadily declined, to 78 million hectares in the 1990s; 52 million in the early 2000s; and 47 million in the last decade. Our World in Data is free and accessible for everyone. By Georgina Rannard. The researchers found that 36 million trees are cut down in urban areas each year, and 167,000 acres of impervious areas (concrete, asphalt, etc.) The rate of deforestation is declining, but we still lost forests at a whopping 10 million hectares per year between 2015-2020. Tyukavina, A., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P. V., Stehman, S. V., Smith-Rodriguez, K., Okpa, C., & Aguilar, R. (2017). The State of the Worlds Forests 2020. Since 2016, an average of 28 million hectares have been cut down every year. Is there a forest transition? International trade was responsible for around one-third (29%) of these emissions. All the software and code that we write is open source and made available via GitHub under the permissive MIT license. This often comes at the cost of forests. Mather refers to an annual loss of less than 0.25% as a small loss. This highlights an important point: less than 20% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to clean fuels for cooking, meaning they still rely on wood and charcoal. Today, most deforestation occurs in the tropics. The world loses almost six million hectares of forest each year to deforestation. Americans cut down 15,094,678 Christmas trees in 2017, according to the most recent year of data from the U.S. Agriculture Department. If we sum countries imported deforestation by World Bank income group, we find that high-income countries were responsible for 14% of imported deforestation; upper-middle income for 52%; lower-middle income for 23%; and low income for 11%. How Many Acres of Trees Are Cut Down Each Year? Globally we deforest around ten million hectares of forest every year.11 Thats an area the size of Portugal every year. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9825en. Many farmers rely on international buyers to earn a living and improve their livelihoods. The researchs results are Deforestation tends to occur on forests that have been around for centuries, if not millennia. A future with more people and more forest is possible. (2017) estimate that the average EU diet, excluding deforestation, is responsible for 0.5 tonnes CO2 per person. (2020).References:FAO and UNEP. We see one such transition in the chart: the forest loss in the temperate regions shown as the green part of the bars peaked much earlier than the global forest loss. The research says 15.3 billion trees are chopped down every year. Still, more than half of the worlds habitable land was forested. In a previous article I showed that the types of food you eat matter much more for your carbon footprint than where it comes from this is because transport usually makes up a small percentage of your foods emissions, even if it comes from the other side of the world. Data on the annual change in domestic forests is sourced from the UN FAOs Forest Resources Assessment. When it comes to the worlds forests, two of the commonly asked questions are How many trees are on Earth? and How many trees are cut down each year? (2017). Since the end of the last great ice age 10,000 years ago the world has lost one-third of its forests.5 Two billion hectares of forest an area twice the size of the United States has been cleared to grow crops, raise livestock, and use for fuelwood. By Georgina Rannard. By the 19th century the forest area was reduced to a third of what it once was. Each year, an estimated 15 billion trees are cut down around the world. Moving into the 20th century there was a stepwise change in demand for agricultural land and energy from wood. In a related post we have combined this FAO data with global deforestation rates from Williams (2003) to document forest change over the last 300 years this gives us data on forest change from 1700 onwards. 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