It is often said that you never know what you’ve got until it has gone. We hope this startling piece helps you deepen your connection with trees everywhere, strengthening your love of parklands, green spaces and forests. We need trees in abundance, especially mature stock and we need them everywhere.
This shocking thought exercise explores what could happen if deforestation ran riot across the globe at the same rate it continues to take place in the Amazon.
Put simply, a planet devoid of trees would lead to a range of significant negative consequences that would affect both the environment and all life on Earth.
- Loss of Oxygen Production: Trees play a critical role in producing oxygen through photosynthesis. Without them, the Earth’s oxygen levels would decrease, impacting the respiratory health of many organisms, including we humans and all wildlife.
- Increased Carbon Dioxide Levels: Trees absorb carbon dioxide and that helps to regulate the Earth’s climate. Without them, we would see a disturbing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels which would contribute to the greenhouse effect and increase global heating.
- Loss of Critical Biodiversity: Trees provide crucial habitats for a vast array of species. The removal of them would lead to shocking declines in biodiversity from the many plants and animals that depend on forests for their survival.
- Soil Erosion: Tree roots anchor the soil and prevent erosion. Without trees, there would be a significantly increased risk of loss of life to humans and wildlife and greater damage from flash flooding. Further, we’d undoubtedly experience degradation of residential and commercial property, a devastating loss of fertile soil and there would be enormous disruption to many of our ecosystems.
- Disruption of Water Cycles: Trees play a crucial role in the water cycle by absorbing and releasing H2O through a process called transpiration. Without trees, we would experience alterations in local and global water cycles, potentially leading to devastating changes in rainfall patterns and increased risk of flooding and drought across the planet.
- Loss of Medicinal Resources: Many plant species found in forests around the world have a wide range of medicinal properties. An absence of trees would also mean a loss of potential pharmaceutical resources. It would impact wildlife which has an amazing ability to use natural resources to heal its own kind. It would also affect many indigenous practitioners of traditional medicine that help humans too. It would also, undoubtedly, negatively impact scientific research.
- Negative Impact on Climate: Trees act as carbon sinks which means they drawdown, absorb and lock in carbon dioxide. Without trees, the Earth’s capacity to mitigate global heating would be severely compromised, leading to more extreme weather events, rising temperatures and a wide variety of other climate-related challenges, including inevitable and unnecessary death to humans and wildlife.
- Negative Impacts on Weather Patterns: The existence of forests also influences local and regional weather patterns. A catastrophic removal of trees would disrupt these patterns, leading to changes in temperature, humidity and precipitation.
- Diminished Aesthetic and Recreational Value: Visually, trees contribute greatly to our neighbourhoods and recreational spaces. They also create colourful green zones where we can spend time in solitude connecting with Mother Nature, or simply hanging out with friends and family. The absence of trees would result in a devastating loss of the aesthetic value that we all take for granted. It would also limit our opportunities for pure and simple fun.
- Economic Consequences: Many industries, including those involved in timber and paper production, rely on trees as a renewable resource. A global loss of trees would impact these and many other industries, leading to potentially unsurmountable economic challenges for communities who are dependent on properly managed forests.
Trees are the key to maintaining a balanced and healthy environment for everyone and everything on Earth. A world without them would have incalculable, far-reaching and detrimental effects on the planet’s ecosystem, the climate and the biodiversity we’re all dependent upon. It would also be absolutely devastating to the health and well-being of all living and breathing organisms.
We hope the knowledge you’re able to glean from Trees Are The Key Awareness Week deepens your love and understanding of what mature trees give us all. We also hope it fires up your passion to protect them and to help us get new saplings in the ground in Kenya, too!To boost our ability to mitigate the climate emergency, please visit WordForest.org/donate.
