Globally, we are losing forests and have lost them for hundreds of years. Iceland, Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia, many places have lost huge amounts of trees due to humans.
Europe as well, actually. It was virtually covered in forests then largely deforested to make way for agriculture. In the last 100 years or so rural exodus and agriculture industrialisation have meant that forests have started to expand again.
That actually highlights a global issue: We, in Europe, scold developing countries for doing what Europe has done (but it was centuries ago so people don't realise it). That is reasonable considering what we now know and modern technology but to avoid hypocrisy this should be accompanied by offers of help to achieve development and jobs without deforestation, and perhaps by no longer buying commodities that require deforestation.
To make room for agriculture, yes, but even moreso to produce charcoal for the almost insatiable steel industry, to be used both as a fuel and a carbon source. Once the trees were gone, we moved to coal.
If you are in areas where lignite is exploited, the areas appear huge (and for the local population they are), but on an overall scale mining does not contribute much to deforestation.
Yeah, I didn't intend to imply that mining causes deforestation, on the contrary. Once the most economical source of carbon was used up, we started to dig it up from the ground.
