Who would have thought that social networking and media would evolve into such a powerful tool for mobilizing people to action? Twitter has helped groups engage followers for good causes, such as Alzheimer’s and water conservation.

The latest social networking venture, Team Earth, involves the fighting Amazonian deforestation.

Launching officially in November, Team Earth is a collection of businesses from Dell to Starbucks, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) including Conservation International, politicians and student activists who hope to utilize the power of social networking to slow tropical deforestation.

So why is deforestation so bad?

• The burning and clearing of tropical forests puts more carbon into the atmosphere than the entire world’s cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships combined.
• The most dramatic impact deforestation has on the environment is a loss of habitat for millions of species. 70% of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes.
• Deforestation drives climate change.
• Forest soils are moist, but without protection from sun-blocking tree cover they quickly dry out.
• Trees also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor back into the atmosphere. Without trees to fill these roles, many former forest lands can quickly become barren deserts.
• Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and holds in heat at night. This disruption leads to more extreme temperatures swings that can be harmful to plants and animals.
• Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Fewer forests means larger amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere—and increased speed and severity of global warming.

What drives deforestation?

Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families.

• The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a process known as “slash and burn” agriculture.
• Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also cut countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation.
• Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl.

What can you do?

• Add your voice to a global call for emergency action today.
• Plant trees to replenish those destroyed by mankind.
• Reduce, reuse and recycle. Harvesting trees for producing paper and paper products is one of the biggest causes of deforestation. If you reduce the amount of paper and paper products that you use, or if you reuse or recycle your paper products, fewer trees will need to be cut down and there will be fewer forests destroyed.