This post steps away from menstrual cups and into forestry - and if I’m honest, it’s a frustrating story to tell. It’s about land, trees, and the uncomfortable space between protection and destruction that I found myself standing in as an environmental consultant.
For two years, I worked in arboriculture and ecology across Victoria and South Australia. At the time, it felt like the right place to be: a solid early-career role, meaningful fieldwork, and experience in a field I cared deeply about. But with distance and reflection, I’ve come to realise that much of the work I did sat uncomfortably close to enabling harm rather than preventing it.
The illusion of environmental protection
On paper, my job was to protect trees and ecosystems. In reality, it often felt like ticking boxes for projects that had already decided the outcome.
Major infrastructure developments cut through complex, beautiful landscapes, and I was brought in to assess which trees could be removed - not to question whether they should be. Decisions had been made long before I arrived on site.
My boss would argue that we were protecting the most “at-risk” or “high-value” trees. But I watched healthy, established trees bulldozed simply because they didn’t meet a narrow definition of worth - not rare enough, not visually impressive enough, not significant enough to slow a highway or housing project.
I had little real influence, and over time, that disconnect became impossible to ignore.
Leaving that role was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I now work in policy, focused on biodiversity protection in New South Wales - work that aligns far more closely with why I entered environmental science in the first place.
But those experiences fundamentally changed how I think about environmental harm, responsibility, and everyday choices.
Why deforestation matters more than we realise
Deforestation and forest degradation occur when human activities - especially logging and agriculture - damage or destroy forest ecosystems. When forests fall, the effects ripple across the planet.
Forests regulate Earth’s climate through complex biological, chemical, and physical processes. One of the most important is carbon sequestration. Forests absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in biomass and soils. When forests are cleared or degraded, that stored carbon is released back into the air.
Forest degradation alone emits around 2.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ every year - roughly the annual emissions of 700 million cars.
Biodiversity loss is another major consequence. Habitat destruction is the leading driver of species extinction globally, and deforestation sits at its core. Fragmented landscapes force wildlife into smaller areas, increase human–wildlife conflict, and destabilise ecosystems. These disruptions are even linked to higher risks of disease outbreaks as mosquito, rodent, and tick populations surge in degraded habitats.
Climate change and biodiversity loss are twin crises. Each accelerates the other - and both are deeply tied to how we treat forests.
Where deforestation is happening - and why
The Amazon: cattle and logging
Brazil and Paraguay remain epicentres of agricultural deforestation, largely driven by cattle ranching. The Amazon is also under pressure from logging, illegal mining, road construction, and large-scale infrastructure. Once roads are built, they open pathways for further clearing, creating a feedback loop of forest loss.
Africa: expanding grain agriculture
Across parts of Africa, expanding grain-based agriculture is driving forest loss. In Kenya’s Taita Hills - part of the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot - logging and farming are shrinking unique cloud forest ecosystems.
Southeast Asia: palm oil plantations
Indonesia and Malaysia dominate global palm oil production. Converting forests to plantations has devastated habitats for orangutans, elephants, and countless other species. While recent analyses show a decline in new deforestation for palm oil, the legacy impacts remain enormous.
The heart of the issue: human demand
Most deforestation traces back to everyday human choices - especially what we eat and buy.
Meat consumption and land use
Cattle ranching requires vast areas of land and produces significant greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane. Reducing global beef consumption could dramatically ease pressure on forests.
Two promising pathways include:
- Shifting towards plant-based diets, which can significantly reduce emissions and land use.
- Developing lab-grown (cultivated) meat, which could reduce land use and animal suffering, though commercial-scale production is still emerging
As food researcher Hannah Ritchie points out, eating less meat is almost always more impactful than simply swapping to “sustainable” meat.
The palm oil puzzle
Palm oil appears in nearly half of packaged supermarket products. While deforestation for palm oil has declined in recent years, sustainable production and reduced demand are both critical. I’ll explore palm oil more deeply in a future post.
Tools for change: awareness, education, and skills
Encouragingly, consumer behaviour is slowly shifting. In the U.S., the plant-based food market grew 29% between 2017 and 2019, signalling a cultural shift toward more sustainable diets.
Education matters too. Cooking classes that teach plant-based shopping and cooking skills have been shown to reduce meat consumption - highlighting how practical skills can drive systemic change.
Hope on the horizon (and the limits of it)
There is no single solution to deforestation. Agriculture is a major driver, but infrastructure and development projects also clear vast landscapes in the name of progress. Addressing forest loss requires dietary shifts, technological innovation, stronger policy, and cultural change.
Some indicators suggest we may be turning a corner. Global agricultural land use may have peaked, and deforestation linked to palm oil is at its lowest level since 2017 in key producing countries. But these gains risk being undermined if large-scale developments continue without genuine ecological limits.
Environmental protection must be embedded into planning and approvals - not treated as an optional add-on.
So where do periods and menstrual cups fit into this?
Working in environmental consulting taught me something uncomfortable: most environmental harm isn’t driven by villains - it’s driven by systems and everyday demand.
Menstrual products are a tiny piece of the global environmental puzzle compared to deforestation. But they’re also a powerful example of how individual choices connect to industrial systems, waste streams, and resource extraction.
Disposable pads and tampons require:
- Cotton farming (often pesticide-heavy and land-intensive)
- Plastic production (from fossil fuels) Packaging, transport, and landfill disposal
- Reusable menstrual cups are not going to save the Amazon.
But they represent the same mindset shift we need for forests: moving from convenience-driven disposability to long-term, lower-impact systems.
For me, cups are less about a product and more about a philosophy: questioning what we’ve normalised, recognising hidden environmental costs, and choosing systems that do less harm.
The bigger picture
If we commit to sustainable practices - from what we eat to how we manage our periods, to how we approve billion-dollar infrastructure projects - future generations can inherit a world rich in forests, biodiversity, and resilience.
The solutions are within reach. But only if we stop treating environmental loss as an acceptable trade-off for development and convenience.
The time to act is now.