Global warming also puts increased pressure on communities who seek food security by clearing forests for agricultural use and reducing arable land more generally. Deforestation also reduces biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing negative feedback cycles contributing to global warming. Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations, as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in habitat damage, biodiversity loss, and aridity. Net change, therefore, can be positive or negative, depending on whether gains exceed losses, or vice versa. 'Deforestation' and 'forest area net change' are not the same: the latter is the sum of all forest losses (deforestation) and all forest gains (forest expansion) in a given period. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines deforestation as the conversion of forest to other land uses (regardless of whether it is human-induced). On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute.

Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year.

This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, a half of that loss occurring in the last century. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present.

The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use.

Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use.

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