{"id":12660,"date":"2015-09-26T10:20:11","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T15:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12660"},"modified":"2015-09-26T10:26:41","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T15:26:41","slug":"forest-loss-and-land-degradation-fuel-climate-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12660","title":{"rendered":"Forest loss and land degradation fuel climate crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forest loss and land degradation fuel climate crisis<\/a><\/b><\/h3>\n
\n
\"Forest<\/div>\n
UN studies show that the combined effects of degraded farmland and the felling and burning of trees are costing the planet trillions of dollars in ecosystem losses.<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n

The planet\u2019s\u00a0forests have dwindled\u00a0by 3%<\/a>\u00a0\u2212 equivalent almost to the land area of South Africa \u2212 in the last 25 years, according to a newassessment\u00a0by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the planet continues to lose its forests \u2013 albeit at a slower rate \u2013 through felling, burning or being turned into farmland, another UN study\u00a0predicts that the\u00a0economic cost of degraded agricultural land<\/a>\u00a0in the form of lost ecosystem services now amounts to\u00a0up to US$10 trillion a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Within 10 years, 50 million people could have been forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods to become migrants. If all those people were assembled in one place, they would constitute the planet\u2019s 28th biggest nation in terms of population.<\/p>\n

Increasing\u00a0levels<\/strong><\/p>\n

Forest loss and farmland degradation are both part of climate change accountancy. The rise in greenhouse gases is in part linked to the loss of forest cover to soak up the carbon dioxide released by the burning of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

But increasing levels of heat and drought are likely to accompany climate change, increasing the area of desert or land too arid to support life and industry.<\/p>\n

So in losing forest, and in watching farmland become saline because of over-irrigation, or exhausted by intensive cultivation or overgrazing, or simply increasingly too arid to support vegetation, humans are witnessing the loss of all sorts of valuable services not normally recorded by accountants.<\/p>\n

Ideas such as \u201cnatural capital\u201d and ecosystem services are attempts to place a practical value on things that nature normally delivers for free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forest loss and land degradation fuel climate crisis UN studies show that the combined effects of degraded farmland and the felling and burning of trees are costing the planet trillions of dollars in ecosystem losses. The planet\u2019s\u00a0forests have dwindled\u00a0by 3%\u00a0\u2212 equivalent almost to the land area of South Africa \u2212 in the last 25 years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,1053,9245,1163,9184],"class_list":["post-12660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-crisis","tag-climate-news-network","tag-forest-loss","tag-land-degradation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12662,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12660\/revisions\/12662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}