Population growth
According to the UN, the world’s population reached 8.2 billion by 2024. This demographic pressure is leading to an increasing demand for agricultural land and living space, at the expense of natural areas. In the tropics, rainforests and cloud forests are the most affected ecosystems. The reduction and fragmentation of forest cover undermines both biodiversity and the availability of natural resources for human use.
Forest logging
UNECE – FAO data show that only 11% of the world’s forests and 30% of forest products are certified for sustainable management, such as PEFC and FSC. Around 60% of exported tropical timber comes from illegal logging. Fine mahogany furniture, teak used in boats and ebony, the wood used in some luxury goods, are some of the best known examples of unregulated logging.
Medicine and the forest
The flora of the rainforest is the world’s greatest pharmacy. For example, more than two-thirds of the anti-cancer drugs known today are based on molecules discovered in the plants of these forests. The figures are worrying: it is estimated that only 1% of tropical plant species have been studied, while hundreds of species go extinct every year before they are even discovered.
Indigenous peoples and the forest
The areas of rainforest that are still intact are home to indigenous peoples. These communities use the forest sustainably: they hunt and gather or farm and raise livestock so that the natural resources of the area do not become depleted. The struggle for ownership of indigenous lands and against resource exploitation remains a critical issue, despite recognition of the role of indigenous peoples in conserving biodiversity.
Livestock and forests
Livestock, particularly cattle, are responsible for 41% of global deforestation, or 2.1 million hectares per year. In the Amazon forest, more than 80% of the land cleared is converted to pasture or the cultivation of soybeans for animal feed. 77% of the soy produced is used to feed livestock. The EU imports meat and soy from endangered areas. This contributes to the loss of tropical forests.
Mining and forests
Between 2001 and 2020, mining caused the loss of 1.4 million hectares of forest, including 450,000 hectares of old-growth tropical rainforest. Gold and coal mining account for 70% of this loss. In Africa, the expansion of lithium, copper and rare earths mining is affecting areas of high biodiversity, threatening the survival of many species.
Biofuels
Though seen as a green alternative to fossil fuels, biofuels require vast amounts of farmland for their production, which is taken from forests or food crops. The most widely used biofuels (derived from maize and sugar cane) meet only 3.6% of total energy demand for transport, a percentage that would need to rise to 15% to meet climate change targets, with an even greater impact on food availability.
Palm oil
An estimated 50% of packaged food in supermarkets contains palm oil, a versatile and cheap product that is also used as a biofuel. However, its production comes at a high environmental cost: up to 300 football pitches of tropical forest are cleared every hour to make way for palm oil plantations, accounting for 7% of global deforestation in the first 20 years of this century.
Deforestation
It is estimated that from the end of the Ice Age to the present (the last 10,000 years), the Earth has lost a third of its original forest cover, cut down to make way for crops, pastures or human settlements, and for firewood. Deforestation has increased sharply over the last three centuries, but until the mid-20th century it affected almost only temperate forests. After the Second World War, large-scale tropical deforestation began, reaching its peak in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, 90% of deforestation still occurs in the tropics (about 10 million hectares per year, more or less the equivalent of 266 football pitches per minute), mainly as a result of agricultural or livestock conversion, shifting cultivation (a.k.a. slash and burn), timber demand and fires.
Forest fragmentation
Forest fragmentation, i.e. the progressive ‘breaking up’ of large areas of forest into smaller, isolated patches without continuity, is a widespread phenomenon, usually caused by human activities that ‘erode’ the forest cover (deforestation, agriculture, urbanisation, road building), but also by natural events such as fires or tree diseases. The introduction of discontinuity is detrimental to biodiversity by reducing habitat availability, widening the forest edge (where conditions are different from the forest core), impeding or preventing wildlife movement, and increasing the vulnerability of the forest to the introduction/invasion of non-native species with negative impacts.
Bushmeat and poaching
Bushmeat refers to the meat of wild animals ”caught in the forest” for human consumption. The hunting of bushmeat has been a constant for human populations living on the edge of or within forests, but in recent decades the amount of meat consumed and the global scale of its use has increased dramatically due to several factors, including population growth, more efficient hunting methods (thanks to more sophisticated weapons), and increased accessibility to previously isolated or remote forest areas.
Illegal killing for food is a major cause of wildlife population decline (defaunation), particularly for threatened and large species. Bushmeat consumption also exposes humans to viruses or other pathogens that wildlife can host.
