Jakob Johnson

The foods we typically eat every day are impacting deforestation all around the world every single day. If we eat any foods with palm oil in it, we are helping impact the deforestation of African tropical jungles in which palm trees thrive. This also impacts biodiversity loss by taking away plants and animals homes, due to palm oil plantations for example palm oil fields have taken away 90% of orangutan habitats. If you eat meat, dairy and eggs then your diet is contributing to deforestation, not directly but for animal feed. Soy bean farms are contributing for 70% of all animal feed and around 33% of all land on Earth is used for growing livestock feed. This has devastated the Amazon Rain forest as thousands of acres are torn down everyday to keep up with this unsustainable practice. In order to combat this we must change our diets as a society. I will do this by cutting back on the amount meat, dairy, and egg products I eat, also I consciously make an effort to make sure I don't buy products that use palm oil. Lastly, I will be an advocate for people that are uneducated on this subject in making sure they know how their diets impact deforestation all around the world. 

I can incorporate these into my life by reducing the amount of single use plastics that I use, a big way I can do this is by reducing the amount of fast food that I eat, because the majority of single use plastics or garbage I create is from fast food waste. Also I can reuse garbage, instead of throwing away plastic bottles or paper cups I can re fill them, or I can use a washable plastic cup to reduce my waste. I can refuse to use single use plastics. These are things I have been wanting to do for a while now, the hardest part is taking that leap and fully diving into a sustainable lifestyle.