Forest Destruction

There are many factors that are occurring by humans to increase land use change and greenhouse
gas emissions. Deforestation and settlement are the most common factors which are responsible
for rapid forest destruction. Deforestation is now one of the largest issues in global land use. It is
the process of destroying or removal of trees through natural or accidental means. These tropical
deforestations donate about 20% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions and it will be
necessary to reduce the amount because it also causes climate change. People are destroying
forests for the use of human specific lands such as, cropland, urbanization or mining activities.
Due to deforestation, a great amount of greenhouse gases is releasing because of the lack of
trees. Trees have the ability to absorb all the carbon dioxides from the atmosphere and keeping
the environment healthy. These forests play the role of valuable carbon sinks. But in the
deforested areas, due to lack of trees, these areas lose the ability to absorb the carbon and as a
result they release more carbon. In purpose of deforestation, people burn the forests and by
burning the trees the amount of carbon dioxides are also increasing because when the trees are
felled, they release all the carbon dioxides into the atmosphere they have been storing. It is been
studied that the averaged global loss of tropical forests during 2015-2017, released about 4.8
billion tons of carbon dioxide per year which is about 8-10% of annual human emissions of
carbon dioxide.

Land Use Change

As the whole world is developing in all sectors of human life, the change in land use is also
occurring rapidly. Land use is mainly the process of the conversion of a piece of land’s use by
human for various purposes. Such as croplands, urban settlements, forests etc. There are mainly
two types of land use which are indirect and direct land use. The direct land use change is
occurred when a piece of land is converted into human specific land by humans. For example, if
a land is used for forestry, farmland etc. it will be called as direct land use change. On the other
hand, the indirect land use change is occurred when the direct land use change takes place in one
location, is connected to equal change in land use in another location. This land use change from
one location to another location is happening because of regional agricultural markets or global
land use. Such as cropland to grassland or from wild land to human specific land uses. The
agricultural activities around the world has improved and developed by the modern technologies.
The speedy expansion of these agricultural activities has caused a huge change in land use in the
past 30 years.

Human Settlements
Human settlements are mainly residential and commercial buildings which are used by humans.
The overpopulation requires more land to establish housing and settlements. It generates a
significant need for food and farmland to grow food and raise livestock. It automatically requires
many more roads and highways for transport and communication, all these results in
deforestation. Logging industries cut down trees for furniture, paper, building materials, and
many more products. Moreover, the growing human population is directly linked to
deforestation. Therefore, it becomes almost essential to purchase from sustainable companies
that actively work against deforestation.
These residential and commercial buildings use huge quantities of energy for heating, cooling,
lighting and others. As the world is developing and the population is also increasing, this
increased population and economic growth drive substantial increase in the number of buildings.
A study in U.S. shows that from 1990 to 2015, the carbon dioxide emission from commercial
buildings and residential buildings increased 7.8% ad 20.4%, respectively. The majority of these
emissions are indirect emissions which are electricity generated from power buildings and other
are direct emissions which are fossil fuels for heating hot water, cooking, refrigerating and air-
conditioning.

Agricultural activities
Agricultural activities is one of the main cause of forest destruction. Due to the overgrowing
demand for food products, a huge number of trees are felled to grow crops, and 33% of
agriculture-caused deforestation is because of subsistence agriculture.

Illegal logging
wood-based industries like paper, match-sticks, furniture, etc. also need a substantial amount of
wood supply. Wood is used as fuel, both directly and indirectly.
 Figure.02
This above pie chart shows the percentage of forest destruction by infrastructure, local
agriculture, commercial agriculture, mining and urban expansion.

Figure.01
The above graph shows the rapid growth of carbon dioxide and other gas emissions from 1990 to
2010 which is an alarming situation for the climate. In 1990, the total carbon dioxide emission
was 31,000 metric tons and the amount increased 45,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2010.