5 Biggest Issues in the World and The Companies Working on Solving Them

3. Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss

The planetary ecosystem is a self-sustaining complex system. Small changes in a complex system often lead to unforeseeable effects, which, in the case of human-caused biodiversity loss, could risk humanity’s survival as a species as well. 

Experts now believe the planet is going through the sixth mass extinction, caused in large part by human activity. A significant portion of this biodiversity loss is occurring due to deforestation. 

Other than sustaining biodiversity, forests also act as natural carbon sinks and are critical in the fight against climate change. About 31% of the world is covered in forests, which absorb roughly 2.6 billion of CO2 every year. On the other hand, the world loses roughly 6 million hectares of forest cover each year on average due to deforestation. 

Many for-profit and non-profit companies are at the forefront in solving deforestation. One of these include Cultivo, a California-based FinTech startup that intends to unlock $1 billion in investment for 3.5 million hectares of forest restoration over the next five years. 

In the non-profit domain, the most prominent one is Gain Forest, a company that uses AI to monitor satellite and field data to monitor sustainable use of land. It rewards forest communities with donations when restoration milestones are achieved.