The primary cause of deforestation is agriculture. Trees are cut down for use as building material or sold as fuel (sometimes in the form of charcoal or timber), while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock and plantation. The vast majority of agricultural activity resulting in deforestation is subsidized by government tax revenue. Disregard of ascribed value, lax forest management, and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that lead to large-scale deforestation. Deforestation in many countries—both naturally occurring and human-induced—is an ongoing issue. Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million square kilometres (890,000 sq mi) of forests around the world were cut down.

The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in habitat damage, biodiversity loss, and aridity. Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations, as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. Deforestation also has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing negative feedback cycles contributing to global warming. Global warming also puts increased pressure on communities who seek food security by clearing forests for agricultural use and reducing arable land more generally. Deforested regions typically incur significant other environmental effects such as adverse soil erosion and degradation into wasteland.

Deforestation is more extreme in tropical and subtropical forests in emerging economies. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the world live in tropical forests. As a result of deforestation, only 6.2 million square kilometres (2.4 million square miles) remain of the original 16 million square kilometres (6 million square miles) of tropical rainforest that formerly covered the Earth.

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