Forests cover 31% of total land area. They produce vital oxygen and provide homes for people and wildlife. Many of the world's most threatened and endangered animals live in forests, and 1.6 billion people rely on benefits that forests offer, including food, fresh water, clothing, traditional medicine and shelter. Forests are complex ecosystems that are important for the carbon and water cycles that sustain life on earth. Surveys show that if we keep cutting down forests at today's rate, in the long term, it is going to cause a devastating chain of events both locally and around the world.

Below you can find some facts about forests:

• 70% of the world's plants and animals live in forests and are losing their habitats to deforestation. Loss of habitat can lead to species extinction. (OneTreePlanted Org.)

• Healthy forests help absorb greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions that are caused by human civilization and contribute to global climate change. Without trees, more carbon and greenhouse gasses enter the atmosphere. To make matters worse, trees actually become carbon sources when they are cut, burned, or otherwise removed. Tropical forests hold more than 210 gigatons of carbon, and deforestation represents around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions. (WWF)

• Trees play an important part in the water cycle, grounding the water in their roots and releasing it into the atmosphere. In the Amazon, more than half the water in the ecosystem is held within the plants. Without the plants, the climate may become dryer. (NC State University)

• Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. An estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest — roughly the size of Panama — are lost each year. (FAO)

• About half of the world's tropical forests have been cleared. (FAO) 

• At the world's current rates, 5-10% of tropical forest species will become extinct every decade. (UN Environment Program)

• Deforestation in simple term means the felling and clearing of forest cover or tree plantations in order to accommodate agricultural, industrial or urban use. It involves permanent end of forest cover to make that land available for residential, commercial or industrial purpose. (National Geographic)

• Causes of deforestation are agricultural activities, logging, urbanization, desertification of land, mining, fires. (University of Abuja)

          Other Resources:

• Forest types and classification
• High resolution forest maps
• Deforestation
• The deforestation: Soybean, Palm Oil, Eucalyptus
• Deforestation and orangutan extinction