The Future of the rainforest

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The Future of the Rainforests

     At the present rate of tropical deforestation, the world's remaining tropical rainforests will vanish in just 30 years.  By working together we can make a difference! Deforestation in the tropical areas of the world is following a course similar to the earlier clearing of the forests in Europe and North America, only advancing more rapidly. Today, more than 3 billion people live in the tropics alone, more than lived in the entire world in 1950.To provide food, wood, fuel and resources for the world's rapidly growing population, and to make room for the exploding tropical population, the world's tropical rainforests are literally disappearing. Amazon rainforests are being cleared on a vast scale for settlements, logging, gold mining, petroleum, cattle ranching, sugar cane (for gasohol), large hydro dams, and charcoal for smelting ore. Peasant farmers also clear the rainforest to have land for planting, by cutting the forest, and then in the dry season burning what they have cut. During one month in 1995 for example, NASA satellite surveys of Brazil recorded 39,889 individual fires. Scientists estimate that until as recently as 10,000 years ago, the world had 6 billion acres of tropical rainforests. By 1950, we had a little less than 2.8 billion acres of rainforest. It was then being cut down at the rate of about 10 to 15 million acres per year. The rate of deforestation is actually predicted to increase even further.

        The chart below dramatically illustrates the fate of the world's rainforests.