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UN report: People have wrecked 40% of all the land on Earth

Grist

A new United Nations report released Wednesday shows farming, mining, and logging has marred more than half of the planet. If these trends continue, experts expect growing disruptions to human health, food supplies, migration, and biodiversity loss driven by climate change, in what the authors calls a “confluence of unprecedented crises.”.

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Rainforest study: Scientists now know the temperature at which photosynthesis stops

Grist

Still, the Amazon covers a land area roughly twice the size of India , and is among the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, with over 3 million species of flora and fauna. But deforestation has slowly eaten away at its edges, and drought and fire have limited rainforests’ ability to withstand extreme temperatures.

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Nonprofit plants 80,000 trees in Kenya and Rwanda

AGreenLiving

Charcoal burning and logging have damaged the forest, eroding soil and frightening people with impending mudslides. Since its founding in 2014, One Tree Planted has worked in Africa, Asia, North America and South America to restore forests, create jobs and protect biodiversity. In 2018, the nonprofit planted 1.3

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The Amazon has lost over 10 million football fields of forest in a decade

AGreenLiving

This sobering deforestation figure highlights the harsh landscape changes caused by intentional human encroachment for commercial development purposes, such as logging, mining and cattle ranching. For one, the Amazon rainforest is a biodiversity hotspot, home to thousands of plant and animal species at risk of endangerment and extinction.

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Trees face extinction, too. What can we do about it?

AGreenLiving

What provides habitat for half the world’s known plants and animals, is a vital component of biodiversity and an important economic crop? Logging, invasive pests, disease, forest clearance and other types of habitat loss all threaten tree species. Nor is climate change helping.