A enormous amount of wood is used by the tobacco industry to dry or cure tobacco. In southern Africa alone an estimated 200,000 hectares of woodlands are cut annually to support tobacco farming. This accounts for 12% of deforestation in the region.
Deforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland. In many countries, deforestation is an ongoing issue that is causing extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of indigenous people.
- Most of the wood is used as fuel (69%), but wood is also used as poles for building curing barns and racks (15%) for hanging the leaves while they dry.
- Burning fuel to cure tobacco releases CO2, which contributes to global warming.
- Tobacco alone is estimated to account for 5% of Africa's total deforestation, and 20% of deforestation in Malawi (Geist 1999).
- Given the millions of copies of newspapers, periodicals, etc. sold every week throughout the world, it is quite likely that advertising is the largest single paper use of the tobacco industry.
- The packaging of cigarettes and other tobacco products may require two to three times as much paper by weight as tobacco.
- Cigarettes that have not been extinguished properly also contribute to deforestation, posing a serious fire hazard. It is estimated that one-quarter to one-third of forest fires around the world are caused by careless smokers.
