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TheAverageBiologist t1_j7q721g wrote

What could we do personally to decrease deforestation?

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U_Sam t1_j7qi07p wrote

Avoid products that contain agriculture heavy products like palm oil and basically any plantation crop. Please do understand that unlike this sort of deforestation, logging for the most part is done in a sustainable way in the United States at least. In fact a lot of issues we’re having right now are due to loss of early successional habitat from the frantic tree planting done by the logging industries back in the day.

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Vericeon t1_j7qr45v wrote

Any plantation crop? As in all plant agriculture?

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U_Sam t1_j7qrccg wrote

I suppose I mean like things that heavily forested areas are typically cleared to grow. Soybeans, coffee beans, etc.. there are some more sustainable plants and stuff to pick from and some that are horrific in their land use

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Vericeon t1_j7qrq3w wrote

From my reading, it seems that eating less meat, particularly red meat, is the best way to reduce your impact. So much of deforestation is to grow soy, corn, etc for animal feed. Not to mention space for those animals to graze.

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U_Sam t1_j7qrylm wrote

Oh yeah I just assumed that was common knowledge at this point that’s my bad. If you’re gonna eat meat you should probably hunt your own

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kittenTakeover t1_j7rf6l4 wrote

Palm oil gets a bad rap from what I can tell. Most of the crops that have the biggest impact, such as palm oil, do so because they're the most used. However, they're often the most used because they're the most efficient. Dropping palm oil may have consequences if you just shift your oil use to a less efficient crop. Now you need even more farm land!

In the end the best general answer to TheAverageBiologist is to consume less and get involved in politics.

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