Agricultural expansion drives almost 90 percent of global deforestation – FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) when releasing the first findings of its new Global Remote Sensing Survey said agricultural expansion drives almost 90 percent of global deforestation – an impact much greater than previously thought.

The new data also confirms an overall slowdown in global deforestation while warning that tropical rainforests, in particular, are under high pressure from agricultural expansion.

Deforestation is the conversion of forest to other land uses, such as agriculture and infrastructure. Worldwide, more than half of forest loss is due to conversion of forest into cropland, whereas livestock grazing is responsible for almost 40 percent of forest loss, according to the new study.

“According to FAO’s latest Global Forest Resources Assessment we have lost 420 million hectares of forest since 1990,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said in a speech prepared for a 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties’ (COP26) high-level dialogue entitled “Upscaling Actions to Turn the Tide on Deforestation” where FAO presented the new findings.

He also emphasized that increasing agri-food productivity to meet the new demands of a growing population and halting deforestation are not mutually exclusive objectives.

Turning the tide on deforestation and scaling up the hard-won progress on this front is of vital importance to build back better and greener from the COVID-19 pandemic, Qu added.

To succeed in such endeavour, we need to know where and why deforestation and forest degradation happens and where the action is needed, the Director-General said, noting that this can only be achieved by combining the latest technological innovations with local expertise on the ground. The new survey serves as a good example of such approach.

Increasing agri-food productivity to meet the new demands of a growing population and halting deforestation are not mutually exclusive objectives. More than 20 developing countries have already shown that it is possible to do so. Indeed, latest data confirms that deforestation has been successfully reduced in South-America and Asia.

S.S/FAO