Deforestation  

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A Clearing in the Woods (1865) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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A Clearing in the Woods (1865) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"We are bound to Enlightenment values — the universality of moral principles, the sanctity of individual volition, a detestation of wanton cruelty — and yet we have no choice but to indict the very civilization that begat those values as it goes careening through time leaving pain, death, bewilderment, the wreckage of aboriginal tribes and of rain forests in its wake. But again, the terms of that indictment can be spelled out only in the language of those values. This, and not the mincing word games of the deconstructionists, is the true aporia. The criminal is also accuser and judge."--Higher Superstition (1994) by Gross and Levitt

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Deforestation, clearance, clearcutting or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land which is then converted to a non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests.

Deforestation can occur for several reasons: trees can be cut down to be used for building or sold as fuel (sometimes in the form of charcoal or timber), while cleared land can be used as pasture for livestock and plantation. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in habitat damage, biodiversity loss, and aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also been used in war to deprive the enemy of vital resources and cover for its forces. Modern examples of this were the use of Agent Orange by the British military in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency and by the United States military in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. As of 2005, net deforestation rates had ceased to increase in countries with a per capita GDP of at least US$4,600. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland.

Disregard of ascribed value, lax forest management, and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that lead to large-scale deforestation. In many countries, deforestation—both naturally occurring and human-induced—is an ongoing issue. Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations, as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the world live in tropical forests.

Between 2000 and 2012, Template:Convert of forests around the world were cut down. As a result of deforestation, only Template:Convert remain of the original Template:Convert of tropical rainforest that formerly covered the Earth. An area the size of a football pitch is cleared from the Amazon rainforest every minute, with Template:Convert of rainforest cleared for animal agriculture overall.

More than 3.6 million hectares of virgin tropical forest was lost in 2018.

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Deforestation" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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