ABSTRACT
The correlation makes sense, given the additional need for farmland, pastureland, and forest products as human numbers expand. But since 1950, the advent of mass consumption of forest products has quickened the pace of deforestation. Several datasets suggest that population pressure is still closely linked with deforestation. Deforestation leads to huge releases of carbon: an estimated one quarter of the world's carbon emissions come from forest clearing. In addition, analysts at the World Resources Institute estimate that overgrazing and over collection of firewood which is often a function of a growing population are degrading some 14 percent of the worlds threatened frontier forests. If population and consumption eat into the world's forests, the resulting loss of forest services reduces, in turn, a country's capacity to support its population. In addition, forests provide services vital to a local population, such as control of erosion, steady provision of water across rainy and dry seasons, and regulation of rainfall.
