Tropical Deforestation Frontier

Tropical forest loss is not one uniform process — a hands-on selective logger removes scattered single trees, while an advancing agricultural frontier clear-cuts contiguous blocks, and a protected reserve or zero-deforestation-committed concession can hold a line against both. This simulation grows a small forest plot on a 22×22 grid and lets you dial in a deforestation rate, a clearing pattern between those two extremes, how strictly a central reserve is enforced, and a reforestation rate that can only regrow where a seed source survives nearby. Watch forest cover, an estimated biodiversity remaining (via the species–area relationship, penalized extra for fragmentation) and carbon stock respond in real time.