Deforestation is the widespread eradication of trees and forests that impacts both global ecosystems and local communities. Forests are vital to planetary health as they play an intricate role in regulating Earth's environmental systems. Trees help sequester carbon which lessens the greenhouse effect, stabilizing global temperatures.
Global forested areas have decreased by 178 million hectares between 1990 and 2020, an area roughly the size of Libya. Despite constituting only 5% of the global population, Indigenous peoples manage about a quarter of Earth's land surface and are the world's essential guardians of biodiversity.
The loss of traditional land to farming, logging, and mining activities robs Indigenous communities of over 404 million hectares of forested land in Latin America alone, with 237 million of these hectares being located in the Amazon Basin. This presents a threat to their cultural identities as sacred sites, rituals, and places of spiritual practices are effectively removed or displaced.
Deforestation is a daily reality in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where roughly 48 football fields of trees are lost per minute. If this rate of clearing forests persists, Earth's rainforests could completely disappear in the next century.