Decrease and Degradation of Forests

Abstract

Deforestation is one of the most accurately measurable cases of acceleration toward global environmental collapse. It is a major cause of climate change and is tearing the web of life apart. Forests are now being destroyed worldwide at a breakneck pace. Recent estimates suggest that a quarter of global forest loss over the last ten millennia has occurred over the past 30 years. Although rainforest clearing is ultimately driven by megacorporations that control the entire cycle of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, production, and trade of soft commodities, the economic elite of tropical countries have a huge share of responsibility in this devastation. Brazil is a case in point. Between 1970 and 2019, Brazil’s military and civilian governments encouraged the destruction of over 1 million km2 of the Cerrado biome and nearly 800,000 km2 of the Amazon forest (20% of its original Brazilian area) through clear cutting. The work of this forest-grinding “machine” represents the most fulminating ecocide ever perpetrated by the human species in both scale and speed. Overall, there is a growing risk that the twenty-first century will be the last century for tropical forests, as these fragile biomes are now approaching their limit of resilience.