As the world works to slow climate change, protect species, as well as provide food for billions of people, trees will undoubtedly play a critical role. However, deforestation; the systematic removal of trees, continues, compromising the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain.

Forests still cover around 30% of the world's land surface, but they are rapidly decreasing. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the earth has lost 420 million hectares (nearly a billion acres) of forest since 1990.

Trees are important for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they absorb not only the carbon dioxide we breath, but also the heat-trapping greenhouse gases produced by human activity. Global warming increases as these gases enter the atmosphere, a tendency scientists now refer to as climate change. Over the next decade, tropical tree cover alone can supply 23% of the needed climate mitigation. Therefore, I am urging you to join this petition to put an end to deforestation's brutality.