Dr. Madhur Anand, Ontario Agricultural College, authored a commentary in The Hill Times looking at the complications around Canada’s commitment to end deforestation in the country by 2030.

The commitment, Anand writes, is complicated by the reality that deforestation is a global issue driven by growing global population, agricultural production and increasing per-capita food consumption.

While Canada is not converting much of its forest lands to agricultural lands, the country’s high demand for foods and goods that cause deforestation elsewhere make the country “indirectly responsible for forest loss,” she writes.

Anand is director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research and leads U of G’s Anand Lab in Global Ecological Change and Sustainability. Her research focuses on the complex effects of ecological change on biodiversity.