Much biodiversity is lost and the world's genetic storehouse becomes impoverished. With the forests gone, foods that normally supplement diets or add valuable nutrients, during times of need, vanish. Local knowledge of traditional foods and medicinal plants is lost too because the forest has disappeared or because the people have acquired a dependence on purchased foods. A linkage which is often not made is the connection between deforestation, lack of fuelwood, food security and health. As deforestation reduces the available fuelwood, there are a number of possible consequences.
Less time is spent cooking and more time is allocated to foraging for fuelwood.
Fewer meals are cooked and a smaller range of foods, usually those that can be eaten raw, is served. Many times, less nutritious foods are prepared. As well, less fuelwood means less water is boiled which reduces the amount of clean water to drink or to wash produce. This, in turn, can increase the incidence of water-borne parasitic diseases. Even more serious, diminishing supplies of fuelwood can cause animal and crop waste to be burned rather than returned to the land as fertilizer.