In 2022 alone, a whopping 7.2-million (and counting) hectares of forest across the globe has been cut down and harvested. Considering our knowledge of the planet’s nearly irreversible state of climate change, numbers such as these are merely unacceptable. We at John Abbott College call upon you, The Honourable Steven Guilbeault and your team, to impose a striking tax on international logging corporations if they are found harvesting more than 0.01 hectares of forestry in Canada. As you are aware, forests are vital for the health of our planet as it is a source of food and home for so much of life on Earth. Nearly 70% of the planet's species live in forests. The disturbance of natural habitat is a direct cause of extinction for a wide array of living beings. Deforestation plays a vital role in contributing to the world’s rapid change of climate. Forest loss and destruction is the cause of almost 11% of annual global C02 emissions https://www.carbonbrief.org/deforestation-has-driven-up-hottest-day-temperatures . This is because trees absorb and store carbon dioxide, however, as a result of deforestation, carbon dioxide along with other greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, warming the globe and causing extreme weather events and starvation. It is imperative that we protect forests if we wish to reverse our current climate crisis. We at John Abbott College strongly believe that sanctions such as the aforementioned tax will encourage logging corporations not to over cut large areas of forest, allowing us to reduce our global number of trees cut per year.