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Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. [1] Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. [2]
Deforestation is a primary contributor to climate change, [ 1 ][ 2 ] and climate change affects the health of forests. [ 3 ] Land use change, especially in the form of deforestation, is the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities, after the burning of fossil fuels. [ 4 ][ 5 ] Greenhouse gases are emitted from ...
Habitat destruction. Map of the world's biodiversity hot spots, all of which are heavily threatened by habitat loss and degradation. Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved to elsewhere or ...
The majority of deforestation took place prior to 1910 with the Forest Service reporting the minimum forestation as 721,000,000 acres (2,920,000 km 2) around 1920. [2] The forest resources of the United States remained relatively constant through the 20th century. [3] The Forest Service reported total forestation as 766,000,000 acres (3,100,000 ...
Habitat fragmentation is the reduction of large tracts of habitat leading to habitat loss. Habitat fragmentation and loss are considered as being the main cause of the loss of biodiversity and degradation of the ecosystem all over the world. Human actions are greatly responsible for habitat fragmentation, and loss as these actions alter the ...
Forest degradation. Degraded forest in Lahnberge, Germany: the soil is being washed out due to lack of vegetal cover, some trees are losing ground and they appear to be sick (photo by Andreas Trepte). Forest degradation is a process in which the biological wealth of a forest area is permanently diminished by some factor or by a combination of ...
Habitat loss, which can occur through the process of habitat fragmentation, is considered to be the greatest threat to species. [14] But, the effect of the configuration of habitat patches within the landscape, independent of the effect of the amount of habitat within the landscape (referred to as fragmentation per se [ 5 ] ), has been ...
A 2023 paper concluded that under the high-warming SSP5–8.5 scenario, 51.79% of birds would lose at least some habitat by 2100 as the conditions become more arid, but only 5.25% would lose over half of their habitat due to an increase in dryness alone, while 1.29% could be expected to lose their entire habitat.