Deforestation: Earth’s Slow Bleed

I was ten years old when my grandfather first took me to the forest behind our village. It wasn’t big or famous, but it was beautiful. Birds chirped from branches high above. Sunlight broke through the thick canopy in golden beams. The ground smelled of damp earth and wildflowers.

“This,” he told me, resting a hand on a thick tree trunk, “is what keeps us alive. These trees breathe for us.”

I didn’t understand it then. I only knew it felt like magic.

Every summer after that, we returned to the forest. We picked berries, watched squirrels race across branches, and sat in the shade during the hottest days. That forest was our retreat—a place of silence, peace, and life.

But everything changed five years ago.

One morning, I visited the forest alone. It had been a few months since my last visit. As I walked toward the usual trail, I heard something I’d never heard before: silence. Not peaceful silence—an eerie, empty quiet.

Then I saw it.

Where trees once stood tall, there was now open ground. Brown, cracked soil stretched far into the distance. Stumps sat like broken teeth in a lifeless smile. Piles of logs were stacked nearby. No birds. No squirrels. Just the buzz of chainsaws in the distance.

I stood frozen. It felt like someone had knocked the air out of my chest.

Later, I learned that the land had been sold to a company planning to build a warehouse. They said the forest was “unused land.” Unused? I wanted to scream. Didn’t they hear the birds? Didn’t they see the deer that drank from the stream? Didn’t they know what they had taken?

But of course, they didn’t. Or they didn’t care.

I began reading about deforestation—what it really meant, beyond just the trees.

I learned that forests cover about 31% of Earth’s land. Yet, every year, we lose over 10 million hectares—an area larger than Portugal. Most of it goes to agriculture, logging, and mining. Some forests are destroyed to grow palm oil. Others are cleared to raise cattle or build new roads.

But it's not just about trees. Forests are home to 80% of the world’s land-based species. When we cut them down, we don’t just lose wood—we lose life.

I read about orangutans with nowhere to go. Birds that never returned. Indigenous communities displaced from their ancestral lands. I read about rising CO₂ levels, hotter temperatures, and how these forests—our planet’s lungs—were slowly disappearing.

And all of it, somehow, traced back to us. To people like me, like you. To what we buy, what we throw away, and what we choose to ignore.

It’s been a year since the last tree in our village forest was cut down. The land is still bare. Sometimes, I go there and sit on the same stump where my grandfather once rested. I close my eyes and try to remember the songs of the birds, the cool shade, the whisper of leaves in the wind.

But memory isn’t enough.

So now, I do what I can. I speak. I plant. I share. I ask others to pay attention. To read the labels on their products. To support reforestation. To question what they consume—not just for themselves, but for the forests that have no voice.

🌱 Message:

Deforestation is not a distant issue. It’s happening silently, everywhere—fuelled by our everyday choices. We must remember that trees are not just resources; they are homes, protectors, and life-givers.

If we keep cutting, one day we will run out of things to build on. And no machine can replace what nature gives freely: air, water, balance, and beauty.

The earth is bleeding slowly, but we still have time to stop it.

Let’s not wait until the forests are only a memory.