Forests are being destroyed to clear land for mining. We can save trees by wasting less of what we already have.

EnvironmentAmerica.org, November 27, 2024

What do cell phones and laptops have to do with deforestation?

More than you might think. The metals and minerals used to manufacture many of the electronics we use every day need to be mined from the earth. As demand for materials increases, more and more land is cleared to make space for mining.

Forest destruction for mining is sweeping the globe. Tropical forests are being razed to make way for coal mines in Indonesia. Much closer to home, over 120,000 hectares of forest in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee have been lost to surface coal mining in the last 20 years.

But there’s a far better way to meet our material needs than destroying forest ecosystems.

How much forest does mining destroy?

Mining across the world has skyrocketed in the last 20 years, as manufacturers race to provide the materials for electronics and energy companies dig for coal to fuel power plants. Over the period between 2001 and 2020, a recent report estimates that the world lost nearly 1.4 million hectares of trees due to mining.

That’s a massive area – picture an area of clear-cutting three times the size of Grand Canyon National Park. And many of the trees that are being impacted are those the planet can least afford to lose. Much of the loss was in primary tropical forests.

Primary forest is habitat that has never been significantly disturbed by humanity. It’s full of mature trees and tons of biodiversity. Destroyed primary forest won’t recover in our lifetimes. We need to preserve as much of this vital ecosystem as we can before it’s gone.

The real area affected by mining-related deforestation is likely even bigger than the estimates, since the estimate did not include deforestation for mining-related infrastructure like roads and storage facilities.

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