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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]
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 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 ...
Deforestation in the Maranhão state, Brazil, in July 2016. The Amazon rainforest, spanning an area of 3,000,000 km 2 (1,200,000 sq mi), is the world's largest rainforest. It encompasses the largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest on the planet, representing over half of all rainforests. The Amazon region includes the territories of ...
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 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 ...
Deforestation by continent. In decades since 1990, South America and Africa have shown the greatest loss of forest area, with global net loss in the 2010s still about 60% of the 1990s value. [1] Rates and causes of deforestation vary from region to region around the world. In 2009, two-thirds of the world's forests were located in just 10 ...
Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in biological diversity in a given area. The decrease can be temporary or permanent.