Can Deforestation Be Reversed?

Written By Teacher: Teresa Pettitt-Kenney

Hi there! My name is Teresa and I just finished my Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and am excited to pursue environmental education in the future! I am extremely passionate about climate change, equitable climate action, and how education can work to address these issues. 

Some students may wonder what we can do to help forests and bring back more trees. Discuss how forests can remove carbon from our atmosphere, but also acknowledge the hurdles to restoring them. Engage students in a debate on the best ways to curb deforestation, or research deforestation in this interactive lab. The more students learn about ways to prevent and overcome these challenges, the more empowered they will be to engage with and advocate for forest conservation.

Written By: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program, a part of MIT Climate HQ, provides the public with nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions.

Forests cover about 30% of the Earth’s land surface. As forests grow, their trees take in carbon from the air and store it in wood, plant matter, and under the soil. If not for forests, much of this carbon would remain in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important greenhouse gas driving climate change. Each year since 2000, forests are estimated to have removed an average of 2 billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere. This “carbon sink function” of forests is slowing climate change by reducing the rate at which CO2, mainly from fossil fuel burning, builds up in the atmosphere. Careful forest management can therefore be an important strategy to help address climate change in the future. Healthy forests also provide a host of other benefits, from clean water to habitat for plants and animals that can live nowhere else.

Deforestation, and our options to reverse it

Over the past 8,000 years, humans have cleared up to half of the forests on our planet, mostly to make room for agriculture. Cutting down or burning forests releases the carbon stored in their trees and soil, and prevents them from absorbing more CO2 in the future. Since 1850, about 30% of all CO2 emissions have come from deforestation. Deforestation can also have more local climate impacts. Because trees release moisture that cools the air around them, scientists have found that deforestation has led to more intense heat waves in North America and Eurasia.