DEFORESTATION

Of the total carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year, deforestation adds 23-30%.

Everyone knows that trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, convert it into carbon which is stored as oxygen, and then release that oxygen back into the atmosphere. Trees have a big role to play in life on earth and are basically the only reason you’re alive right now.
No exaggeration.

     

Just as important: Forests act as one of those amazing carbon sinks, taking in and storing excess amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forests contain about 80% of all organic carbon above ground, and 40% of all organic carbon below ground. That’s a lot of stored carbon. Young trees grow more rapidly and absorb more carbon dioxide than old trees, which, although they absorb less carbon dioxide, have much greater stores of carbon in their biomass.¹

When we cut down forests we essentially destroy their ability to act as a carbon sink. But not only do we suffer a loss of carbon absorption, we also release masses of stored carbon back into the atmosphere: a serious double-whammy. If that weren’t bad enough, clearing and burning rainforests releases great amounts of methane, ozone and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere as well.

80% of old growth forests worldwide are gone, as well as 95% of old growth forests in the United States, cut down and processed for paper, pulp and fuel to satiate our growing demands. 37.5 million acres of rainforests—home to about half the planet’s 5 to 10 million plant and animal species—are lost annually. Until the 1980s, Canadian forests were carbon sinks, absorbing excess carbon dioxide, according to the Canadian Forest Service. But due to increased forest fires, insect infestation and harvesting for pulp and paper products, they now contribute more CO₂ to our atmosphere than they remove.

Canada's Boreal Forest stretches 1.6 billion acres from coast to coast covering 53 percent of Canada.² It plays a vital role in helping regulate the earth's climate because combined with Russia's Boreal Forest, it holds 40% of the world's carbon. The Boreal Forest is home to hundreds of plant and animal species and supports 600 aboriginal groups, who depend upon it for livelihood and spiritual identity. But the Boreal Forest is 94% public land, which makes it extremely vulnerable to development. Multinational pulp and paper companies purchase virgin fibre to produce a variety of consumer products, including lumber, newsprint, mail cataloges and disposable facial tissue and toilet paper. The United States is the destination for approximately 80 percent of Canada's forest products.³ Local logging companies are clear cutting vast tracts of the Boreal Forest to fill a demand that literally gets flushed down the toilet. Kimberley-Clark is one such company proliferating the sale of Boreal toilet paper.

^{1 Source:http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Science/Forests_And_Sinks.asp
2 Source:http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/canada/work/art12507.html
3 Source: http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/fboreal.asp}