4. What is the relationship between deforestation, drought, and forest fires?

Industrial deforestation is the greatest threat that hangs over humanity and other species. Among the main causes of climate change, cutting down trees is the most difficult to combat, because the forests belong to countries and their governments wield the intervention of national sovereignty to avoid any interference. It must be the citizens of these nations who pressure their governments to stop the destruction of the forests.

In large-scale deforestation, as the trees of a forest are felled and their areas cleared, to supply the lumber industry with logs and obtain spaces for planting and livestock, the forest gradually loses its moisture, and it becomes prone to fire.

A clear example of this is found in the rainforest of Borneo. Starting in the 1970s, hostile deforestation began in the lungs of Southeast Asia for timber, which intensified in the 1980s and 1990s. Later, the rain forest, where humidity and mud made it difficult to light a fire, became an arid territory prone to continuous forest fires, many of them caused, whose effects have been felt in other regions. What happened in Borneo was not a natural disaster as a result of an earthquake or a hurricane. It was, without a doubt, an anthropogenic disaster, the work of Homo sapiens.

We recommend these related reading:

Heat waves, fires, and climate change

Forests and water, two inseparable and essential factors

How Borneo already had its own Climate Change made by human hands

The Homo predator in Borneo

What would happen if the Amazon rainforest ends up like the Borneo rainforest?

Magazine All about Amazon rainforest