Researchers from the University of Maryland found that in 2022, about 11 football fields of forest were cut down every minute, and the total area reached the size of Switzerland, that is, more than 4 million hectares
This released an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to India's annual fossil fuel emissions, the BBC reported.
It is noted that the largest amount of forests was destroyed in Brazil.
The article said that such a trend does not correspond to the Glasgow Declaration, which was signed by more than 100 countries at the COP26 climate summit in 2021. The signatories pledged to stop forest loss and land degradation by 2030.
The BBC emphasized that deforestation has been drastically reduced in Indonesia. This means that the trend can be reversed. After all, the loss of primary tropical (old-growth) forests is considered particularly critical for containing the global warming and loss of biodiversity.
It is noted that the tropical forests of Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia absorb a huge amount of greenhouse gases. By clearing or burning these old forests, the stored carbon is released into the atmosphere, raising temperatures around the world. And these losses cannot be replaced by planting new trees, since these forests have developed over a long period.
The study found that the tropics will lose 10% more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021. Brazil dominates primary rainforest loss, increasing by over 14% in 2022.
The material emphasized that the method of calculating the loss of forests did not take into account natural fires, the death of trees from diseases and pests, etc.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the European Parliament passed a law that obliges companies to guarantee that their products, on EU markets, did not lead to deforestation and forest degradation after December 31, 2020.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, in 2021, the Earth lost 11.1 million hectares of tropical forests, mainly due to logging and fires.
