Deforestation and Land Use: How Forests, Farms, and Soil Shape the Climate

Deforestation and Land Use: How Forests, Farms, and Soil Shape the Climate

Editorial advisor: Mr. John Smith, Specialist Environment, PhD in Environmental Engineering.

When a forest is cut and burned, two climate harms happen at once. The carbon stored in trees and soil is released as carbon dioxide, and the land loses its ability to absorb carbon in the future. Multiply that by millions of hectares, year after year, and land use becomes one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions — roughly a fifth of the global total when deforestation, agriculture, and related land changes are combined.

Yet land is also part of the solution. Forests, wetlands, grasslands, and healthy soils store enormous amounts of carbon. Protecting them prevents emissions; restoring them can remove carbon from the atmosphere. Land policy is therefore both a climate risk and a climate opportunity, and it touches food, livelihoods, biodiversity, and water in ways that energy policy alone does not.

Why forests matter so much

A mature forest stores carbon in trunks, branches, roots, leaves, and soil. Tropical forests are especially carbon-dense, and peatlands — waterlogged soils rich in organic matter — store even more per hectare. When forests are cleared for cattle ranching, soy, palm oil, timber, or subsistence farming, much of that carbon is released quickly if trees are burned, or over years if timber decays.

Deforestation is concentrated in the tropics, particularly in the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia. Drivers differ by region: cattle and soy in South America, palm oil and pulp in Southeast Asia, small-scale farming and fuelwood in parts of Africa. Behind these direct drivers sit global demand for meat, animal feed, vegetable oil, and timber, and weak governance that allows illegal clearing to go unpunished.

Losing forests also changes local and regional climate. Trees recycle moisture through transpiration, helping to generate rainfall. Large-scale deforestation can reduce rainfall downwind, making remaining forest drier and more fire-prone — a feedback that can turn forest into savanna if pushed far enough. Scientists warn that parts of the Amazon may approach such a tipping point if deforestation and warming continue.

Agriculture's footprint

Agriculture emits greenhouse gases in several ways. Livestock produce methane through digestion and manure. Nitrogen fertilisers release nitrous oxide when applied in excess or at the wrong time. Rice paddies, flooded for much of the growing season, produce methane as organic matter decays without oxygen. Farm machinery and fertiliser production burn fossil fuels.

These emissions are not a reason to blame farmers alone. Farmers operate within markets, subsidies, and supply chains that reward high output and low prices. Solutions must work for farmers: precision fertiliser application that uses less nitrogen for the same yield, manure management that captures biogas, alternate wetting and drying in rice that cuts methane without cutting yield, and livestock breeding and feed that reduce methane per litre of milk or kilogram of meat.

Diet also matters, though its role is often overstated or understated in public debate. Producing beef generally emits far more per kilogram than producing poultry, pulses, or grains, largely because of methane, feed, and land use. Shifting diets toward more plant-rich options in high-meat-consuming countries can cut emissions significantly, but it is one lever among many, not a complete solution, and it must be discussed without shaming people for whom meat is culturally important or nutritionally necessary.

Soil: the hidden carbon store

Soil holds more carbon than the atmosphere and all vegetation combined. Healthy soil, rich in organic matter, supports crops, retains water, and resists erosion. Degraded soil — eroded, compacted, or depleted by intensive tillage and monoculture — loses carbon, holds less water, and produces less.

Practices that protect soil carbon include reduced tillage, cover crops that keep soil covered between main crops, crop rotation, compost and manure application, and agroforestry — integrating trees into farms. These practices often improve yields and resilience over time, but they require knowledge, upfront investment, and secure land tenure. A tenant farmer with a one-year lease has little incentive to invest in soil that will benefit someone else.

Peatlands deserve special attention. Drained peatlands, often for agriculture or forestry, oxidise and release CO2 continuously for decades. Rewetting drained peatlands is one of the most effective land-based climate actions per hectare, though it requires compensating landowners and managing water carefully.

What restoration can and cannot do

Planting trees is popular, and for good reason: restoring degraded land, protecting existing forests, and planting native species in the right places can remove carbon, restore habitat, and protect water. But tree planting is not a substitute for cutting fossil-fuel emissions, and badly done planting can harm.

Monoculture plantations of fast-growing exotic species store less carbon long-term, support little biodiversity, and can deplete water. Planting trees on natural grasslands or wetlands can destroy ecosystems that already store carbon underground. And a newly planted tree takes decades to store as much carbon as a mature tree that was cut down. The priority order is therefore clear: protect existing forests first, restore degraded land second, and plant new trees third — with native species, local involvement, and long-term care.

Indigenous peoples and local communities manage a large share of remaining intact forests, and evidence shows that where their land rights are secure, deforestation rates are lower. Supporting those rights is both a justice issue and a climate strategy.

Land, food, and climate together

Land decisions involve trade-offs. Land used for bioenergy crops or large plantations cannot also grow food or support wildlife. Expanding farmland into forest increases food supply in the short term but undermines rainfall, soil, and climate stability that farming depends on. Sustainable intensification — producing more on existing farmland through better practices — can reduce pressure to clear new land, but only if it is paired with forest protection; otherwise, higher yields can simply make expansion more profitable.

Consumers, companies, and governments all have roles. Deforestation-free supply chains, certification, and due-diligence laws can reduce the link between everyday products and forest loss. But certification alone is insufficient without enforcement, traceability, and support for smallholders who cannot afford compliance costs.

Land is where climate, food, water, and biodiversity meet. Protecting forests and soils is not a side project to energy decarbonisation; it is a parallel necessity. Without it, fossil-fuel cuts alone will not be enough. With it, climate action also protects livelihoods, water, and the living world.

Sources

• IPCC, Special Report on Climate Change and Land — https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, State of the World's Forests — https://www.fao.org/publications/home/fao-flagship-publications/the-state-of-the-worlds-forests/en
• United Nations Environment Programme — https://www.unep.org/
• NASA, Causes of Climate Change — https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/causes/
• Global Forest Watch — https://www.globalforestwatch.org/