Relationship between economic and deforestation

Deforestation refers to removal of a forest or trees from an area and change the function of the area to non-forest uses. The areas are usually turn into urban development areas or agricultural uses, the trees would be used for construction purposes or sold as fuels. Deforestation would cause large environmental impacts to the natural habitat and biodiversity of the area, removal of a large scale of forest would also impact the carbon dioxide rate in the atmosphere.

In terms of economic aspect, deforestation could provide large amount of land and raw resources into the market. The land would be opportunities for urban development or other usages that enhance economic development for a country or city. In 2017, Scientific Report has publish a research paper “Economic Development and Forest Cover: Evidence form Satellite Data” by IIASA (ScienceDaily, 2017). The paper focus on the relationship between Income per Capita and deforestation in different countries. The research is based on an existing theory called “Kuznet’s Curve”, which predicted that economic growth would lead to depletion in environment in undeveloped country and the effect would be revert in developed countries (ScienceDaily, 2017).

The result of the research stated that half of “Kuznet’s Curve” is correct where the developing countries have higher depletion on environment. The studies has demonstrated that undeveloped countries and developed countries both have low depletion on environment. According to researcher of IIASA, the main concern would be undeveloped countries in Africa (ScienceDaily, 2017). Africa have large amount of undisturbed forests, the main concern for the researcher is that the developing stages of Africa countries, the deforestation would create worldwide environmental impacts.

I think that the research result has provide an understanding between environmental impacts in development of countries. I think that developed countries should offers helps and resources to undeveloped countries to prevent or reduce environmental impacts during their developing stages. These resources could be education, technology and financial supports.

ScienceDaily(2017, Jan 17), Trade-offs between economic growth and deforestation. Available at:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170117140246.htm (accessed April 10, 2017).