Forest as vast as Italy’s size Lost

In 2017, slash and burn deforestation which was done to make farms was highly responsible for the devastation of an area in Italy. It made such a massive tree loss that year that it was the second-worst year of deforestation in Italy. The record says the last time this maximum loss happened in 2001.

Around 113,000 square miles were cleared that too from Congo basin and Amazon and also across Malaysia and Indonesia.

This unexpected level of loss has made a recorded as the second-worst year. In 2016, the amount of forest destroyed was 185,000 square miles. Since 2003, the loss of trees cover has doubled globally and the devastation of tropical rainforests has doubled since 2008.

In a report which included figures from Global Forest Watch showed that 17,000 square miles alone had been lost of tree cover in Brazil. The Global Forest Watch is run by World Resources Institute (WRI) based in the US.

No doubt there is a small overall estimated percentage of loss of tropical rainforest, there has been an alarming rise in the deforestation in Columbia. It is noticed that the loss has jumped by 46 percent in 2017. Columbia has lost around 1,640 of total square miles of forest, which has doubled the country’s average deforestation rate between 2001 and 2015.

The increase in Colombian government’s peace deal is linked to the FARC rebels by WRI. It was observed that there was a limited large forest area for commercial use in the recent decades. As there is no control of rebels now, so there have been more and more clearing of land by land speculators and people for mining, farming, and lodging.

A total of 30 percent of tropical rainforest was recorded in Brazil and to clear all the space; the fire was set. The clearing of land forests has increased a lot due to climate change.

There is lack of implementation of bans on forest deforestation and setting fires on lands in Brazil, said the experts from the WRI. This has led to the rollback on environmental protections by Michel Temer’s Government, the Brazilian president. It’s also noticed that there has been a drastic increase in the human-set fires.

Due to high global demand for palm oil, there has been deforestation at an alarming rate in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Both the countries have witnessed intense deforestation, but in Indonesia, there is a sharp fall in 2017, i.e. the loss has dropped by 60 percent. This fall has increased the protection of peat areas, said the experts. They also added that due to higher rainfalls also, many fires have were extinguished.

The figures reported that if palm oils are replaced by other vegetable oil plantations then only there will be a decrease in the environmental destruction or otherwise prevention is the only option.

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