deforestation – the facts

There is a staggering volume of horrific facts on deforestation & its effects on our environment, far too many for us to cover, so we have picked out some of the ones that moved us the most to states of startled disbelief.

Rainforests are home to more species of Plants & Animals than the rest of the World combined. Over 50% of the World’s species live in Tropical Forests. We lose 50 of these species everyday (that’s 2 and hour) due to deforestation. Over 2000 tropical plants are known to contain anti-cancer properties with 25% of Western medicine originating from the tropical rainforests & yet scientists have only intensively screened 1 in 100 tropical forest plants.
These same plants & tree’s act as a global ‘air conditioner’ by storing the carbon from absorbed carbon monoxide & releasing fresh & clean oxygen into our atmosphere. It is a key component in the fundamental balance of our planet.

200 years ago there were 2.9 billion hectares of tropical forests worldwide. Now there are only   1.5 billion. At this rate there will be none left within the space of only 3 generations.

2000 trees are cut down in the rainforests every minute. The common way to clear forest land for agriculture or ranching is by burning the trees down. On September 9th, 1987, a satellite picture of the Amazon River Basin showed over 7,600 fires burning at that one time in the rainforest. Unlike our forests, however, much of the rainforests nutrients are stored within the actual vegetation rather than the soil & so this land created for farming degrades quickly & is usually abandoned.

Only 4% of the World’s tropical rainforests are protected. Due to this almost 90% of both Madagascar’s & West Africa’s forests have been destroyed with 75% of Australia’s being destroyed since the late 1700’s. Perhaps most staggering however, is Asia losing a third of its tropical rainforests between the years of 1960-1980 (just 20 years), & holds the depressing record for the World’s highest rate of forest clearance.

About 50% of all mammals & 25% of all bird species within peninsula Malaysia will become extinct by the year 2020 if this continues.

This affects countless native tribes also, with 90 Amazonian tribes disappearing in the 20th Century due to deforestation. Before 1500 there were approximately 6 million native people living in Brazilian Amazonia. By 2000 there were less than 250,000.

This is all because at least 42 million acres of tropical forest are lost every single year.
That is around 100 acres per minute.