New Study Shows Urbanization Contributes to Deforestation

According to a new study by scientists at Columbia, Rutgers, and South Dakota, one of the culprits of deforestation is one that you might not have guessed: urbanization. Columbia University Earth Institute's Ruth Defries was quoted in a new post on Treehugger, explaining:

One line of thinking was that concentrating people in cities would leave a lot more room for nature. But those people in cities and the rest of the world need to be fed. That creates a demand for industrial-scale farming.

Head over to Treehugger for more information on how migration to cities and the resulting need for agricultural exports are wiping out forests.Photo (cc) by Flickr user a_rabin