Land degradation is exacerbated by global warming and climate change, due to human activities. Droughts ruin soils through the cracking of the earth. The wrong practices in agriculture, such as logging and burning, impoverish and erode the soil, potentially causing the permanent desertification of large areas.

Forest fires are getting bigger and more frequent, possibly because of climate change, but they are also the product of small intentional burning that sometimes becomes uncontrollable. The fires, combined with subsequent floods, devastate the lands and make them potentially sterile. The destruction of forests, to supply wood to the timber industry, in addition to having negative consequences for the soil, affects the water cycle and reduces the absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. The spaces left behind after felling trees are usually used to plant industrial plants, such as soybeans or oil palm. Both cause the degradation of soils, which in the long run can become sterile and useless lands.