What are the impacts of deforestation on the Earth's oxygen and carbon cycles? What are the other consequences of deforestation?

Forests play an important role in maintaining both the carbon and oxygen cycles. Trees absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere during photosynthesis, and store carbon in their trunks, branches, roots, leaves, and soil. At the same time, they release oxygen (O₂), which is essential for life. Deforestation disturbs these cycles in several ways. When trees are cut down, burned, or left to decay, the stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere as CO₂, increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases and contributing to global warming. The loss of forests also reduces the Earth's capacity to absorb atmospheric CO₂ because fewer trees remain to perform photosynthesis.

At the same time, deforestation decreases the production of oxygen, since photosynthetic activity is greatly reduced. Reduced vegetation also lowers transpiration, decreasing the amount of water vapour into the atmosphere and disturbing local weather patterns and the water cycle.

Thus, deforestation disrupts both the carbon and oxygen cycles, intensifies the greenhouse effect, causes environmental imbalance and climate change.