https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220401094827.htm

Every year, 10 million hectares of forest disappear worldwide, predominantly driven by human activities such as agriculture expansion, building of roads, or wood extraction. To combat this trend and apply effective conservation measures, it is crucial to understand the drivers behind forest loss.

In a new study published in Nature Scientific Data, an international team of researchers harnessed the power of the crowd and set up a crowdsourcing campaign in December 2020 on the Geo-Wiki platform to compile data on the drivers of tropical forest loss between 2008 and 2019. In the analysis, the researchers asked participants to identify the predominant and secondary tree loss driver visible in a randomly shown location between 30° North and South of the equator and to note if roads, trails, or buildings were present.