For my part, I will be focusing on some critical aspects of tropical deforestation. In the process I hope to help provide an enhanced basis for thinking about a much wider range of environmental issues such as erosion, air pollution, and wildlife management. Deforestation means that the land is converted permanently from forest uses to non-forest purposes.
Deforestation is much more serious than forest degradation.
Forest degradation may alter the ecology of a forest parcel, but does not destroy all forest cover. Logging is a main direct cause of forest degradation in many countries. In a very few nations logging is so destructive as to be a direct cause of deforestation. In other nations, logging can indirectly cause deforestation, by opening up remote areas of the forest for agriculture. But my focus today is only on deforestation.