The planet’s climate would also be drastically altered in the short and long term. “Therefore, losing even individual trees can severely impact biodiversity locally.” “Even a single, isolated tree in an open area can act as a biodiversity ‘magnet,’ attracting and providing resources for many animals and plants,” Prevedello says. In 2018, Prevedello and his colleagues found, for example, that overall species richness was 50 to 100% higher in areas with scattered trees than in open areas. The wave of extinctions would extend beyond forests, depleting wildlife that depends on single trees and small stands of trees as well. “There would be massive extinctions of all groups of organisms, both locally and globally.” Habitat loss is already the primary driver of extinction worldwide, so the destruction of all remaining forests would be “catastrophic” for plants, animals, fungi and more, says Jayme Prevedello, an ecologist at Rio de Janeiro State University in Brazil. “If we get rid of all the trees, we will live a planet that might not actually be able to sustain us anymore.”įor starters, if trees disappeared overnight, so would much of the planet’s biodiversity. “Let me just start with how horrible a world without trees would be – they are irreplaceable,” says Isabel Rosa, a lecturer in environmental data and analysis at Bangor University in Wales. Slash-and-burn is also especially on the rise in Indonesia and Madagascar. In August, the National Institute for Space Research showed an 84% increase in fires in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest compared to the same period in 2018. In many places, tree loss is accelerating. Especially in the tropics, many of the world’s remaining three trillion trees are falling fast, with about 15 billion cut each year, the Nature study states. Since the onset of the industrial era, forests have declined by 32%. Much of the deforestation has happened in recent years. Why plant blindness matters – and what you can do about it.How plants reclaimed Chernobyl’s poisoned land.How Japan’s ancient trees could tell the future. Since our species began practicing agriculture around 12,000 years ago, we’ve cleared nearly half of the world’s estimated 5.8 trillion trees, according to a 2015 study published in the journal Nature. Yet we often treat trees as disposable: as something to be harvested for economic gain or as an inconvenience in the way of human development. They support natural and human food systems and provide homes for countless species – including us, through building materials. Trees’ services to this planet range from carbon storage and soil conservation to water cycle regulation. “Without them, we lose extraordinary and essential functions for life on Earth.” “Forests are the lifeline of our world,” says Meg Lowman, director of the Tree Foundation, a non-profit organisation in Florida that is dedicated to tree research, exploration and education. Without trees, all hope seems lost.įuriosa’s feelings were justified. When Furiosa arrives at the sacred spot, however, she finds only skeletal trunks and sprawling dunes. In Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron’s Furiosa strives to return to “the Green Place” – a tree-filled oasis in the otherwise lifeless wasteland that the Earth has become.
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