Сокращение обезлесения
.jpg?sfvrsn=6c657d7_0 "Philippines, slash and burn method ©FAO")
Basic knowledge
Deforestation and its impacts
Deforestation is the long-term or permanent conversion of forest to other land uses, such as agriculture, pasture, water reservoirs, infrastructure and urban areas. The term deforestation does not apply to areas where the trees have been removed as a result of harvesting or logging and the forest is expected to regenerate (either naturally or with the aid of silvicultural measures), but it does apply to situations in which logging is followed by the conversion of the logged-over forest to other land uses.
Deforestation can have huge impacts – at the local to global scale – on societies and the environment. Globally, deforestation and forest degradation contribute about one-fifth of total greenhouse gas emissions. Other environmental impacts of deforestation include damage to and the fragmentation of habitat and the resultant loss of biodiversity; the disruption of water cycles; soil erosion; and desertification.
Deforestation can have severe socioeconomic consequences: for example, it can threaten the livelihoods, cultures and survival of people who depend on forests, including indigenous peoples; weaken local and national economies; trigger social conflicts over natural resources; increase the impact of natural disasters; and cause population displacements.
Although, in many places (especially some developing countries), the rate of deforestation is worrisome, some studies suggest that deforestation may often be part of a process in which declines in forest cover are followed by periods of forest-cover gains. Such “forest transitions” have been found to occur in countries with two sometimes-overlapping circumstances: 1) economic development leading to the abandonment of agricultural lands and the spontaneous regeneration of forests; and 2) a scarcity of forest products, leading to the active planting of trees instead of crops or pasture grasses. The conditions under which forest transitions occur vary, and in some places such transitions have not occurred at all. The forest transition theory highlights the importance of considering the drivers of both deforestation and forest restoration.
Связанные модули
- Collaborative conflict management
- Forest management planning
- Forest tenure
- Management of non-wood forest products
- Protected areas
Сокращение вырубки лесов способствует достижению ЦУР:
In more depth
Drivers of deforestation
The dynamics and causes of deforestation are multi-faceted and complex, and they vary from place to place. There are direct drivers of deforestation, which are associated with a complex set of indirect (“underlying”) drivers that also need to be tackled if efforts are to be successful in the long term. Drivers can also classified be as human-induced or natural.
The principal direct drivers of deforestation at the global level are:
- commercial agriculture for food, feedstock, fibre and biofuel (e.g. palm oil, soybeans, beef, maize, rice, cotton and sugar cane);
- local or subsistence agriculture;
- infrastructure expansion;
- mining; and
- urban expansion.
Illegal or otherwise unsustainable logging is principally an agent of forest degradation, but it may also be a precursor to deforestation: selectively logged forests are often deforested within a few years of logging if governance is weak and logging roads provide ready access to the land for agriculture and other development.
Underlying drivers are complex interactions of social, economic, political–institutional, technological and cultural factors that affect the direct drivers. They act at multiple scales, such as:
- global (e.g. markets forces, commodity prices, and a lack of international agreements or their enforcement);
- national (e.g. population growth or movement, domestic markets, unsound national policies, conflicting cross-sectoral policies, weak governance and institutions, market failures, lack of law enforcement, illegal activities, civil conflict, diverging interests, unequal power relations, and the centralization of services); and
- local (e.g. poverty, changes in household behaviour, landlessness, the unclear and asymmetric allocation of rights, technological change in agriculture, and a lack of investment in SFM).
The distinction between direct and underlying causes, and between human-induced and natural change, is often unclear. Deforestation usually involves long, complex chains of cause and effect.
The main drivers of deforestation are all likely to increase in coming years as a result of continued increases in population and economic growth; urbanization; meat consumption; global demand for wood products and agricultural commodities; and the impacts of climate change, such as increased fire frequency and intensity, and pest and diseases.