It is often said that when we were hunters we were more healthy, handsome, slim and higher, than after assuming settled rural lifestyle, causing diseases and adiposity. And if we start to "breed" wild animals in their natural environment, incresing areas of their natural habitats in the place of agriculture terrains exclusively devoted to needs of breeding our livestock? Could we lost or win on that? The biodiversity certainly would. Let us compare the two numbers from an attached picture:
(f) vertebratas: –28.9%; (i) ruminant livestock: +20.5%.
It demonstrates that we lost (by deforestation) for free approximately the same amount of meat as we produce in costly industrial breeding; If we have to be superpredators (which we are), wasn't it be better to left the forest for wild animals (deers and boars) than cut it for pastures and fodder for our livestock?
It is a very interesting and valuable comparison. Could you apply the same scale for all (for instance, the percentage of 1960)? Otherwise, the visualization can be misleading. For instance, the dropping forest areas, the very steep line is only 2.5%-5% drop; vertebrata abundance 55% drop; CO2 emissions/ year 350% increase; human population 150% increase, livestock 60% increase.
In the case of CO2 the emission itself is a poor measure since the effect is via the increasing CO2 level (cumulative) in the air not by the emitted carbon, besides the impact of changes in CO2 level in the air has no linear correlation with climate change.
I suggest to change CO2 to GDP increase since GDP has a strong correlation with the environmental burden caused by human (not only CO2 but wastes, pollution, exploitation of natural resources).
The global GDP was 1.37 trillion in 1960 and 75.85 trillion in 2015 what is an astonishing 5530% increase.
I have been all about sustainability and forests in my entire life, but considering 2.5% decrease in forest areas (only in developing countries and the decrease is slowing down) compared the 5530% increase in production and human wealth paint a different picture. It is not sustainable, but...
You can use the graph of the Earth's overshoot day as well to illustrate the impacts.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?
https://www.overshootday.org/
Congratulations! You will stimulate a lot of discussion. Remember too that what you have presented are associations not necessarily demonstrating cause/effect
I totally agree with Mr. Radics's detailed answer. Also that deforestation is a more local phenomenon, met mostly in developing countries, Amazonian forests etc. where there is plenty of forest. As regarding "more healthy, handsome, slim and higher", there are much more aspects to consider, we should not forget about the ancestors very short life expectancy. Just in Middle Age a 25-year-old man was already old, the life expectancy being about 30 yr at world level, not speaking about birth mortality or other factors. Probably life in ancient times was not too pink and easy...
I meant deforestation in favor of pastures, while for energy, furniture industry etc., deforestation is everywhere in limits of local regulations.
The source of above diagrams is Global Change & the Earth System, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, 2004
http://www.igbp.net/download/18.56b5e28e137d8d8c09380001694/1376383141875/SpringerIGBPSynthesisSteffenetal2004_web.pdf
They are at the page 132 of above reference, and a page earlier there is also Total Real GDP for comparison (from 1950 up to 2000 it incresed roughly from 5 to 35 trillion of 1990 International Dollars - 7 times).
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