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Larger Swaths of Tropical Forest Being Lost to Commercial Agriculture
https://nicholas.duke.edu/about/news/larger-swaths-tropical-forest-being-lost-commercial-agriculture[font face=Serif][font size=5]Larger Swaths of Tropical Forest Being Lost to Commercial Agriculture[/font]
May 9, 2017
[font size=3]DURHAM, N.C. -- Larger patches of tropical forest are being lost worldwide as governments and corporations clear more land to make way for industrial-scale agriculture, a Duke University study shows.
[font size=1]Satellite images show deforestation caused by livestock agriculture in Paraguay.(Credit: European Space Agency)[/font]
The newly published analysis reveals that clearings for large-scale agricultural expansion were responsible for an increasing proportion -- in some places, more than half -- of all observed forest loss across the tropics between 2000 and 2012.
The trend was most pronounced in Southeast Asia and South America.
“In South America, more than 60 percent of the increase in deforestation was due to a growing number of medium- and large-sized forest clearings typical of what you see with industrial-scale commercial agricultural activities,” said Jennifer J. Swenson, associate professor of the practice of geospatial analysis at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
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https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6a88May 9, 2017
[font size=3]DURHAM, N.C. -- Larger patches of tropical forest are being lost worldwide as governments and corporations clear more land to make way for industrial-scale agriculture, a Duke University study shows.
[font size=1]Satellite images show deforestation caused by livestock agriculture in Paraguay.(Credit: European Space Agency)[/font]
The newly published analysis reveals that clearings for large-scale agricultural expansion were responsible for an increasing proportion -- in some places, more than half -- of all observed forest loss across the tropics between 2000 and 2012.
The trend was most pronounced in Southeast Asia and South America.
“In South America, more than 60 percent of the increase in deforestation was due to a growing number of medium- and large-sized forest clearings typical of what you see with industrial-scale commercial agricultural activities,” said Jennifer J. Swenson, associate professor of the practice of geospatial analysis at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
…[/font][/font]
3 replies
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90% of the world's rain forests are gone. 90%. 
I think it was GliderGuider who would occasionally post about how humanity has pushed the planet past numerous tipping points, not just those related to climate change, and that even if we could magically convert all our energy sources to carbon-neutral ones overnight, we'd still be fucked on a global scale.
But hey, I'm sure a few billion more humans by 2050 won't make things any worse 
