DEFORESTATION

Jungle burned for agriculture in southern Mexico.

Deforestation in the Gran Chaco, Paraguay

Deforestation and increased road-building in the Amazon Rainforest are a significant concern
because of increased human encroachment upon wild areas, increased resource extraction and
further threats to biodiversity.

Deforestation is the clearance of forests by logging and/or burning (popularly known as slash
and burn).

Deforestation occurs for many reasons: trees or derived charcoal are used as, or sold, for fuel or
as lumber, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock, plantations of commodities, and
settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to
habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric
carbon dioxide. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently
degrade into wasteland.

Disregard or ignorance of intrinsic value, lack of ascribed value, lax forest management and
deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large
scale. In many countries, deforestation is an ongoing issue that is causing extinction, changes to
climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of indigenous people.

Among countries with a per capita GDP of at least US$4,600, net deforestation rates have ceased
to increase.

Contents
 1 Causes of deforestation
 2 Environmental problems
o 2.1 Atmospheric
o 2.2 Hydrological
o 2.3 Soil
o 2.4 Ecological
 3 Economic impact
 4 Forest Transition Theory
 5 Historical causes
o 5.1 Prehistory
o 5.2 Pre-industrial history
 6 Industrial era
o 6.1 Rates of deforestation
 7 Deforestation by region
 8 Controlling deforestation
o 8.1 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)
o 8.2 Farming
o 8.3 Forest management
o 8.4 Certification of sustainable forest management practices
 o 8.5 Reforestation
o 8.6 Forest plantations

Causes of deforestation
There are many root causes of contemporary deforestation, including corruption of government
institutions, the inequitable distribution of wealth and power, population growth and
overpopulation, and urbanization. Globalization is often viewed as another root cause of
deforestation, though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization (new flows of labor,
capital, commodities, and ideas) have promoted localized forest recovery.

In 2000 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that "the role of
population dynamics in a local setting may vary from decisive to negligible and that
deforestation can result from "a combination of population pressure and stagnating economic,
social and technological conditions."

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

secretariat, the overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture. Subsistence farming is
responsible for 48% of deforestation; commercial agriculture is responsible for 32% of
deforestation; logging is responsible for 14% of deforestation and fuel wood removals make up
5% of deforestation.

The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make
forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. Many important forest
functions have no markets, and hence, no economic value that is readily apparent to the forests'
owners or the communities that rely on forests for their well-being. From the perspective of the
developing world, the benefits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go primarily to
richer developed nations and there is insufficient compensation for these services. Developing
countries feel that some countries in the developed world, such as the United States of America,
cut down their forests centuries ago and benefited greatly from this deforestation, and that it is
hypocritical to deny developing countries the same opportunities: that the poor shouldn't have to
bear the cost of preservation when the rich created the problem.

Experts do not agree on whether industrial logging is an important contributor to global

deforestation. Some argue that poor people are more likely to clear forest because they have no
alternatives, others that the poor lack the ability to pay for the materials and labor needed to clear
forest. One study found that population increases due to high fertility rates were a primary driver
of tropical deforestation in only 8% of cases.

Some commentators have noted a shift in the drivers of deforestation over the past 30 years.
Whereas deforestation was primarily driven by subsistence activities and government-sponsored
development projects like transmigration in countries like Indonesia and colonization in Latin
America, India, Java etc. during late 19th century and the earlier half of the 20th century. By the
1990s the majority of deforestation was caused by industrial factors, including extractive
industries, large-scale cattle ranching, and extensive agriculture.
Environmental problems
Atmospheric

Deforestation is ongoing and is shaping climate and geography.

Deforestation is a contributor to global warming, and is often cited as one of the major causes of
the enhanced greenhouse effect. Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately 20% of
world greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
deforestation, mainly in tropical areas, could account for up to one-third of total anthropogenic
carbon dioxide emissions. But recent calculations suggest that carbon dioxide emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation (excluding peatland emissions) contribute about 12% of
total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions with a range from 6 to 17%. Trees and other plants
remove carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere during the process of
photosynthesis and release oxygen back into the atmosphere during normal respiration. Only
when actively growing can a tree or forests remove carbon over an annual or longer timeframe.
Both the decay and burning of wood releases much of this stored carbon back to the atmosphere.
In order for forests to take up carbon, the wood must be harvested and turned into long-lived
products and trees must be re-planted. Deforestation may cause carbon stores held in soil to be
released. Forests are stores of carbon and can be either sinks or sources depending upon
environmental circumstances. Mature forests alternate between being net sinks and net sources
of carbon dioxide (see carbon dioxide sink and carbon cycle).

Reducing emissions from the tropical deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in
developing countries has emerged as new potential to complement ongoing climate policies. The
idea consists in providing financial compensations for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions from deforestation and forest degradation".

Rainforests are widely believed by laymen to contribute a significant amount of world's oxygen,
although it is now accepted by scientists that rainforests contribute little net oxygen to the
atmosphere and deforestation will have no effect on atmospheric oxygen levels.However, the
incineration and burning of forest plants to clear land releases large amounts of CO2, which
contributes to global warming.

Forests are also able to extract carbon dioxide and pollutants from the air, thus contributing to
biosphere stability

Hydrological

The water cycle is also affected by deforestation. Trees extract groundwater through their roots
and release it into the atmosphere. When part of a forest is removed, the trees no longer
evaporate away this water, resulting in a much drier climate. Deforestation reduces the content of
water in the soil and groundwater as well as atmospheric moisture.Deforestation reduces soil
cohesion, so that erosion, flooding and landslides ensue. Forests enhance the recharge of aquifers
in some locales, however, forests are a major source of aquifer depletion on most locales.
Shrinking forest cover lessens the landscape's capacity to intercept, retain and transpire
precipitation. Instead of trapping precipitation, which then percolates to groundwater systems,
deforested areas become sources of surface water runoff, which moves much faster than
subsurface flows. That quicker transport of surface water can translate into flash flooding and
more localized floods than would occur with the forest cover. Deforestation also contributes to
decreased evapotranspiration, which lessens atmospheric moisture which in some cases affects
precipitation levels downwind from the deforested area, as water is not recycled to downwind
forests, but is lost in runoff and returns directly to the oceans. According to one study, in
deforested north and northwest China, the average annual precipitation decreased by one third
between the 1950s and the 1980s

Trees and plants in general, affect the water cycle significantly:

 their canopies intercept a proportion of precipitation, which is then evaporated back to the
atmosphere (canopy interception);
 their litter, stems and trunks slow down surface runoff;
 their roots create macropores - large conduits - in the soil that increase infiltration of
water;
 they contribute to terrestrial evaporation and reduce soil moisture via transpiration;
 Their litter and other organic residue change soil properties that affect the capacity of soil
to store water.
 Their leaves control the humidity of the atmosphere by transpiring. 99% of the water
absorbed by the roots moves up to the leaves and is transpired.

As a result, the presence or absence of trees can change the quantity of water on the surface, in
the soil or groundwater, or in the atmosphere. This in turn changes erosion rates and the
availability of water for either ecosystem functions or human services.

The forest may have little impact on flooding in the case of large rainfall events, which
overwhelm the storage capacity of forest soil if the soils are at or close to saturation.

Tropical rainforests produce about 30% of our planet's fresh water.

Soil
Deforestation for the use of clay in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. The hill depicted is
Morro da Covanca, in Jacarepaguá

Undisturbed forests have a very low rate of soil loss, approximately 2 metric tons per square
kilometer (6 short tons per square feet.Deforestation generally increases rates of soil erosion, by
increasing the amount of runoff and reducing the protection of the soil from tree litter. This can
be an advantage in excessively leached tropical rain forest soils. Forestry operations themselves
also increase erosion through the development of roads and the use of mechanized equipment.

China's Loess Plateau was cleared of forest millennia ago. Since then it has been eroding,
creating dramatic incised valleys, and providing the sediment that gives the Yellow River its
yellow color and that causes the flooding of the river in the lower reaches (hence the river's
nickname 'China's sorrow').

Removal of trees does not always increase erosion rates. In certain regions of southwest US,
shrubs and trees have been encroaching on grassland. The trees themselves enhance the loss of
grass between tree canopies. The bare intercanopy areas become highly erodible. The US Forest
Service, in Bandelier National Monument for example, is studying how to restore the former
ecosystem, and reduce erosion, by removing the trees.

Tree roots bind soil together, and if the soil is sufficiently shallow they act to keep the soil in
place by also binding with underlying bedrock. Tree removal on steep slopes with shallow soil
thus increases the risk of landslides, which can threaten people living nearby. However most
deforestation only affects the trunks of trees, allowing for the roots to stay rooted, negating the
landslide.

Ecological

Deforestation results in declines in biodiversity. The removal or destruction of areas of forest

cover has resulted in a degraded environment with reduced biodiversity. Forests support
biodiversity, providing habitat for wildlife; moreover, forests foster medicinal conservation.
With forest biotopes being irreplaceable source of new drugs (such as taxol), deforestation can
destroy genetic variations (such as crop resistance) irretrievably.
Since the tropical rainforests are the most diverse ecosystems on Earth and about 80% of the
world's known biodiversity could be found in tropical rainforests, removal or destruction of
significant areas of forest cover has resulted in a degraded environment with reduced
biodiversity.

It has been estimated that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species every single day due
to rainforest deforestation, which equates to 50,000 species a year. Others state that tropical
rainforest deforestation is contributing to the ongoing Holocene mass extinction. The known
extinction rates from deforestation rates are very low, approximately 1 species per year from
mammals and birds which extrapolates to approximately 23,000 species per year for all species.
Predictions have been made that more than 40% of the animal and plant species in Southeast
Asia could be wiped out in the 21st century. Such predictions were called into question by 1995
data that show that within regions of Southeast Asia much of the original forest has been
converted to monospecific plantations, but that potentially endangered species are few and tree
flora remains widespread and stable.

Scientific understanding of the process of extinction is insufficient to accurately make

predictions about the impact of deforestation on biodiversity. Most predictions of forestry related
biodiversity loss are based on species-area models, with an underlying assumption that as the
forest declines species diversity will decline similarly. However, many such models have been
proven to be wrong and loss of habitat does not necessarily lead to large scale loss of species.
Species-area models are known to overpredict the number of species known to be threatened in
areas where actual deforestation is ongoing, and greatly overpredict the number of threatened
species that are widespread.

Economic impact
Damage to forests and other aspects of nature could halve living standards for the world's poor
and reduce global GDP by about 7% by 2050, a major report concluded at the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Bonn. Historically utilization of forest products,
including timber and fuel wood, have played a key role in human societies, comparable to the
roles of water and cultivable land. Today, developed countries continue to utilize timber for
building houses, and wood pulp for paper. In developing countries almost three billion people
rely on wood for heating and cooking.

The forest products industry is a large part of the economy in both developed and developing
countries. Short-term economic gains made by conversion of forest to agriculture, or over-
exploitation of wood products, typically leads to loss of long-term income and long term
biological productivity (hence reduction in nature's services). West Africa, Madagascar,
Southeast Asia and many other regions have experienced lower revenue because of declining
timber harvests. Illegal logging causes billions of dollars of losses to national economies
annually.

The new procedures to get amounts of wood are causing more harm to the economy and
overpower the amount of money spent by people employed in logging. According to a study, "in
most areas studied, the various ventures that prompted deforestation rarely generated more than
US$5 for every ton of carbon they released and frequently returned far less than US$1". The
price on the European market for an offset tied to a one-ton reduction in carbon is 23 euro (about
US$35).

Forest Transition Theory

The forest transition and historical baselines.

The forest area change may follow a pattern suggested by the forest transition (FT) theory,
whereby at early stages in its development a country is characterized by high forest cover and
low deforestation rates (HFLD countries).

Then deforestation rates accelerate (HFHD, high forest cover - high deforestation rate), and
forest cover is reduced (LFHD. low forest cover - high deforestation rate), before the
deforestation rate slows (LFLD, low forest cover - low deforestation rate), after which forest
cover stabilizes and eventually starts recovering. FT is not a “law of nature,” and the pattern is
influenced by national context (e.g., human population density, stage of development, structure
of the economy), global economic forces, and government policies. A country may reach very
low levels of forest cover before it stabilizes, or it might through good policies be able to
“bridge” the forest transition.

FT depicts a broad trend, and an extrapolation of historical rates therefore tends to underestimate
future BAU deforestation for counties at the early stages in the transition (HFLD), while it tends
to overestimate BAU deforestation for countries at the later stages (LFHD and LFLD).

Countries with high forest cover can be expected to be at early stages of the FT. GDP per capita
captures the stage in a country’s economic development, which is linked to the pattern of natural
resource use, including forests. The choice of forest cover and GDP per capita also fits well with
the two key scenarios in the FT:

(i) a forest scarcity path, where forest scarcity triggers forces (e.g., higher prices of forest
products) that lead to forest cover stabilization; and

(ii) an economic development path, where new and better off-farm employment opportunities
associated with economic growth (= increasing GDP per capita) reduce profitability of frontier
agriculture and slows deforestation.
Historical causes
Further information: Timeline of environmental events

Prehistory

An array of Neolithic artifacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools.

Small scale deforestation was practiced by some societies for tens of thousands of years before
the beginnings of civilization. The first evidence of deforestation appears in the Mesolithic
period. It was probably used to convert closed forests into more open ecosystems favourable to
game animals. With the advent of agriculture, larger areas began to be deforested, and fire
became the prime tool to clear land for crops. In Europe there is little solid evidence before 7000
BC. Mesolithic foragers used fire to create openings for red deer and wild boar. In Great Britain,
shade-tolerant species such as oak and ash are replaced in the pollen record by hazels, brambles,
grasses and nettles. Removal of the forests led to decreased transpiration, resulting in the
formation of upland peat bogs. Widespread decrease in elm pollen across Europe between 8400-
8300 BC and 7200-7000 BC, starting in southern Europe and gradually moving north to Great
Britain, may represent land clearing by fire at the onset of Neolithic agriculture.

The Neolithic period saw extensive deforestation for farming land. Stone axes were being made
from about 3000 BC not just from flint, but from a wide variety of hard rocks from across Britain
and North America as well. They include the noted Langdale axe industry in the English Lake
District, quarries developed at Penmaenmawr in North Wales and numerous other locations.
Rough-outs were made locally near the quarries, and some were polished locally to give a fine
finish. This step not only increased the mechanical strength of the axe, but also made penetration
of wood easier. Flint was still used from sources such as Grimes Graves but from many other
mines across Europe.

Evidence of deforestation has been found in Minoan Crete; for example the environs of the
Palace of Knossos were severely deforested in the Bronze Age.
Pre-industrial history

Throughout most of history, humans were hunter gatherers who hunted within forests. In most
areas, such as the Amazon, the tropics, Central America, and the Caribbean, only after shortages
of wood and other forest products occur are policies implemented to ensure forest resources are
used in a sustainable manner.

In ancient Greece, Tjeered van Andel and co-writers summarized three regional studies of
historic erosion and alluviation and found that, wherever adequate evidence exists, a major phase
of erosion follows, by about 500-1,000 years the introduction of farming in the various regions
of Greece, ranging from the later Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. The thousand years
following the mid-first millennium BCE saw serious, intermittent pulses of soil erosion in
numerous places. The historic silting of ports along the southern coasts of Asia Minor (e.g.
Clarus, and the examples of Ephesus, Priene and Miletus, where harbors had to be abandoned
because of the silt deposited by the Meander) and in coastal Syria during the last centuries BC.

Easter Island has suffered from heavy soil erosion in recent centuries, aggravated by agriculture
and deforestation. Jared Diamond gives an extensive look into the collapse of the ancient Easter
Islanders in his book Collapse. The disappearance of the island's trees seems to coincide with a
decline of its civilization around the 17th and 18th century. He attributed the collapse to
deforestation and over-exploitation of all resources.

The famous silting up of the harbor for Bruges, which moved port commerce to Antwerp, also
followed a period of increased settlement growth (and apparently of deforestation) in the upper
river basins. In early medieval Riez in upper Provence, alluvial silt from two small rivers raised
the riverbeds and widened the floodplain, which slowly buried the Roman settlement in alluvium
and gradually moved new construction to higher ground; concurrently the headwater valleys
above Riez were being opened to pasturage.]
Loss of old growth forest in the United States; 1620, 1850, and 1920 maps:.

A typical progress trap was that cities were often built in a forested area, which would provide
wood for some industry (e.g. construction, shipbuilding, pottery). When deforestation occurs
without proper replanting, however; local wood supplies become difficult to obtain near enough
to remain competitive, leading to the city's abandonment, as happened repeatedly in Ancient
Asia Minor. Because of fuel needs, mining and metallurgy often led to deforestation and city
abandonment.

With most of the population remaining active in (or indirectly dependent on) the agricultural
sector, the main pressure in most areas remained land clearing for crop and cattle farming.
Enough wild green was usually left standing (and partially used, e.g. to collect firewood, timber
and fruits, or to graze pigs) for wildlife to remain viable. The elite's (nobility and higher clergy)
protection of their own hunting privileges and game often protected significant woodlands.]

Major parts in the spread (and thus more durable growth) of the population were played by
monastical 'pioneering' (especially by the Benedictine and Commercial orders) and some feudal
lords' recruiting farmers to settle (and become tax payers) by offering relatively good legal and
fiscal conditions. Even when speculators sought to encourage towns, settlers needed an
agricultural belt around or sometimes within defensive walls. When populations were quickly
decreased by causes such as the Black Death or devastating warfare (e.g. Genghis Khan's
Mongol hordes in eastern and central Europe, Thirty Years' War in Germany), this could lead to
settlements being abandoned. The land was reclaimed by nature, but the secondary forests
usually lacked the original biodiversity.

Industrial era
In the 19th century, introduction of steamboats in the United States was the cause of
deforestation of banks of major rivers, such as the Mississippi River, with increased and more
severe flooding one of the environmental results. The steamboat crews cut wood every day from
the riverbanks to fuel the steam engines. Between St. Louis and the confluence with the Ohio
River to the south, the Mississippi became more wide and shallow, and changed its channel
laterally. Attempts to improve navigation by the use of snag pullers often resulted in crews'
clearing large trees 100 to 200 feet (61 m) back from the banks. Several French colonial towns of
the Illinois Country, such as Kaskaskia, Cahokia and St. Philippe, Illinois were flooded and
abandoned in the late 19th century, with a loss to the cultural record of their archeology.[75]

The whole scale clearance of woodland to create agricultural land can be seen in many parts of
the world, such as the Central forest-grasslands transition and other areas of the Great Plains of
the United States. Specific parallels are seen in the 20th-century deforestation occurring in many
developing nations.
Rates of deforestation

Orbital photograph of human deforestation in progress in the Tierras Bajas project in eastern
Bolivia

Global deforestation sharply accelerated around 1852. It has been estimated that about half of the
Earth's mature tropical forests—between 7.5 million and 8 million km2 (2.9 million to 3 million
sq mi) of the original 15 million to 16 million km2 (5.8 million to 6.2 million sq mi) that until
1947 covered the planet—have now been cleared. Some scientists have predicted that unless
significant measures (such as seeking out and protecting old growth forests that have not been
disturbed) are taken on a worldwide basis, by 2030 there will only be ten percent remaining, with
another ten percent in a degraded condition. 80% will have been lost, and with them hundreds of
thousands of irreplaceable species.

Estimates vary widely as to the extent of tropical deforestation. Scientists estimate that one fifth
of the world's tropical rainforest was destroyed between 1960 and 1990.They claim that that
rainforests 50 years ago covered 14% of the world's land surface, now only cover 5-7%, and that
all tropical forests will be gone by the middle of the 21st century.

A 2002 analysis of satellite imagery suggested that the rate of deforestation in the humid tropics
(approximately 5.8 million hectares per year) was roughly 23% lower than the most commonly
quoted rates. Conversely, a newer analysis of satellite images reveals that deforestation of the
Amazon rainforest is twice as fast as scientists previously estimated.

Some have argued that deforestation trends may follow a Kuznets curve, which if true would
nonetheless fail to eliminate the risk of irreversible loss of non-economic forest values (e.g., the
extinction of species).

A 2005 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that
although the Earth's total forest area continues to decrease at about 13 million hectares per year,
the global rate of deforestation has recently been slowing. Still others claim that rainforests are
being destroyed at an ever-quickening pace. The London-based Rainforest Foundation notes that
"the UN figure is based on a definition of forest as being an area with as little as 10% actual tree
cover, which would therefore include areas that are actually savannah-like ecosystems and badly
damaged forests." Other critics of the FAO data point out that they do not distinguish between
forest types, and that they are based largely on reporting from forestry departments of individual
countries’ which do not take into account unofficial activities like illegal logging.
 Despite these uncertainties, there is agreement that destruction of rainforests remains a
significant environmental problem. Up to 90% of West Africa's coastal rainforests have
disappeared since 1900. In South Asia, about 88% of the rainforests have been lost. Much of
what remains of the world's rainforests is in the Amazon basin, where the Amazon Rainforest
covers approximately 4 million square kilometres. The regions with the highest tropical
deforestation rate between 2000 and 2005 were Central America—which lost 1.3% of its forests
each year—and tropical Asia.In Central America, two-thirds of lowland tropical forests have
been turned into pasture since 1950 and 40% of all the rainforests have been lost in the last 40
years. Brazil has lost 90-95% of its Mata Atlântica forest. Madagascar has lost 90% of its eastern
rainforests. As of 2007, less than 1% of Haiti's forests remained.[104] Mexico, India, the
Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, Laos,
Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana and the Côte d'Ivoire,
have lost large areas of their rainforest. Several countries, notably Brazil, have declared their
deforestation a national emergency. The World Wildlife Fund's ecoregion project catalogues
habitat types throughout the world, including habitat loss such as deforestation, showing for
example that even in the rich forests of parts of Canada such as the Mid-Continental Canadian
forests of the prairie provinces half of the forest cover has been lost or altered.

Deforestation by region
Rates of deforestation vary around the world. Southeast Asia and parts of South America are
among the regions of highest concern to environmentalists.

Controlling deforestation
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)

Main article: Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation

Major international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Bank, have begun
to develop programs aimed at curbing deforestation. The blanket term Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) describes these sorts of programs, which use
direct monetary or other incentives to encourage developing countries to limit and/or roll back
deforestation. Funding has been an issue, but at the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties-15 (COP-15) in Copenhagen in December 2009,
an accord was reached with a collective commitment by developed countries for new and
additional resources, including forestry and investments through international institutions, that
will approach USD 30 billion for the period 2010 - 2012. Significant work is underway on tools
for uses in monitoring developing country adherence to their agreed REDD targets. These tools,
which rely on remote forest monitoring using satellite imagery and other data sources, include
the Center for Global Development's FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action) initiative [110]
and the Group on Earth Observations' Forest Carbon Tracking Portal. Methodological guidance
for forest monitoring was also emphasized at COP-The environmental organization Avoided
Deforestation Partners leads the campaign for development of REDD through funding from the
U.S. government.
Farming

New methods are being developed to farm more intensively, such as high-yield hybrid crops,
greenhouse, autonomous building gardens, and hydroponics. These methods are often dependent
on chemical inputs to maintain necessary yields. In cyclic agriculture, cattle are grazed on farm
land that is resting and rejuvenating. Cyclic agriculture actually increases the fertility of the soil.
Intensive farming can also decrease soil nutrients by consuming at an accelerated rate the trace
minerals needed for crop growth

Forest management

Efforts to stop or slow deforestation have been attempted for many centuries because it has long
been known that deforestation can cause environmental damage sufficient in some cases to cause
societies to collapse. In Tonga, paramount rulers developed policies designed to prevent conflicts
between short-term gains from converting forest to farmland and long-term problems forest loss
would cause, while during the seventeenth and 18th centuries in Tokugawa, Japan, the shoguns
developed a highly sophisticated system of long-term planning to stop and even reverse
deforestation of the preceding centuries through substituting timber by other products and more
efficient use of land that had been farmed for many centuries. In 16th century Germany
landowners also developed silviculture to deal with the problem of deforestation. However, these
policies tend to be limited to environments with good rainfall, no dry season and very young
soils (through volcanism or glaciation). This is because on older and less fertile soils trees grow
too slowly for silviculture to be economic, whilst in areas with a strong dry season there is
always a risk of forest fires destroying a tree crop before it matures.

In the areas where "slash-and-burn" is practiced, switching to "slash-and-char" would prevent the
rapid deforestation and subsequent degradation of soils. The biochar thus created, given back to
the soil, is not only a durable carbon sequestration method, but it also is an extremely beneficial
amendment to the soil. Mixed with biomass it brings the creation of terra preta, one of the richest
soils on the planet and the only one known to regenerate itself.

Certification of sustainable forest management practices

Certification, as provided by global certification systems such as PEFC and FSC, contributes to
tackling deforestation by creating market demand for timber from sustainably managed forests.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "A major condition
for the adoption of sustainable forest management is a demand for products that are produced
sustainably and consumer willingness to pay for the higher costs entailed. Certification
represents a shift from regulatory approaches to market incentives to promote sustainable forest
management. By promoting the positive attributes of forest products from sustainably managed
forests, certification focuses on the demand side of environmental conservation."
Reforestation

In many parts of the world, especially in East Asian countries, reforestation and a forestation are
increasing the area of forested lands. The amount of woodland has increased in 22 of the world's
50 most forested nations. Asia as a whole gained 1 million hectares of forest between 2000 and
2005. Tropical forest in El Salvador expanded more than 20% between 1992 and 2001. Based on
these trends, one study projects that global forest will increase by 10%—an area the size of India
—by 2050.

An ambitious proposal for China is the Aerially Delivered Re-forestation and Erosion Control
System and the Proposed Sahara forest project coupled with the Seawater Greenhouse.

In Western countries, increasing consumer demand for wood products that have been produced
and harvested in a sustainable manner is causing forest landowners and forest industries to
become increasingly accountable for their forest management and timber harvesting practices.

Forest plantations

To meet the world's demand for wood, it has been suggested by forestry writers Botkins and
Sedjo that high-yielding forest plantations are suitable. It has been calculated that plantations
yielding 10 cubic meters per hectare annually could supply all the timber required for
international trade on 5% of the world's existing forestland. By contrast, natural forests produce
about 1-2 cubic meters per hectare; therefore, 5 to 10 times more forestland would be required to
meet demand. Forester Chad Oliver has suggested a forest mosaic with high-yield forest lands
interpersed with conservation land

One analysis of FAO data suggests that afforestation and reforestation projects "could reverse the
global decline in woodlands within 30 years."