Why is rainforest destruction so severe?
Rainforest trees typically have very large canopies, and the loss of only a few trees can lay an entire acre bare. Once these areas are cleared, most animals move on, starting a collapse of the ecosystem. How bad is it? Unless conservation efforts in the tropics are intensified, most rainforests will disappear early next century. We lose 50 million acres of rainforest per year — about a football field per second. What is destroying the world’s rainforests? The driving forces behind rainforest loss are: agriculture, cattle raising, logging, oil and gas pipelines and plantations. Often, a single road will expose deep parts of the forest to slash-and-burn farming by new settlers. When an area can no longer provide food, usually due to topsoil erosion from this unsustainable farming practice, settlers move on to burn a new plot. According to a report by Friends of the Earth, as much as 80 percent of global rainforest destruction is caused by conversion of forests into agricultural land. W
