DESTRUCTION OF THE RAINFOREST

WHAT IS RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION?

Rainforest destruction is the mass cutting down of trees in rainforests. Doing this can kill animals and destroy landscapes. Rainforest destruction started to make a big impact around the 1980sbut it did happen long before.

WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?Deforestation happens because people want to use the resources for money and supplies such as timber and fire wood. With the technology on hand nowadays trees can be cut down on a mass scale using tree choppers that can cut down hundreds of trees an hour. This is much faster than just using an axe.

RATE OF DESTRUCTIONThe rate of destruction of trees in the Brazilian Amazon is displayed below:

Period

Estimated remaining

forest coverin the Brazilian Amazon (km²)

Annual forestloss (km²)

Percent of 1970cover

remaining

Total forest losssince 1970 (km²)

Pre–1970 4,100,000 — — —

1977 3,955,870 21,130 96.5% 144,130

1978–1987 3,744,570 21,130 91.3% 355,430

1988 3,723,520 21,050 90.8% 376,480

1989 3,705,750 17,770 90.4% 394,250

1990 3,692,020 13,730 90.0% 407,980

1991 3,680,990 11,030 89.8% 419,010

1992 3,667,204 13,786 89.4% 432,796

1993 3,652,308 14,896 89.1% 447,692

1994 3,637,412 14,896 88.7% 462,588

1995 3,608,353 29,059 88.0% 491,647

1996 3,590,192 18,161 87.6% 509,808

1997 3,576,965 13,227 87.2% 523,035

1998 3,559,582 17,383 86.8% 540,418

1999 3,542,323 17,259 86.4% 557,677

2000 3,524,097 18,226 86.0% 575,903

2001 3,505,932 18,165 85.5% 594,068

2002 3,484,538 21,394 85.0% 615,462

2003 3,459,291 25,247 84.4% 640,709

2004 3,431,868 27,423 83.7% 668,132

2005 3,413,022 18,846 83.2% 686,978

2006 3,398,913 14,109 82.9% 701,087

2007 3,387,381 11,532 82.6% 712,619

2008 3,375,413 11,968 82.3% 724,587

2009 3,367,949 7,464 82.2% 732,051

2010 3,360,949 7,000 82.0% 739,051

2011 3,354,711 6,238 81.8% 745,289

USES OF RAINFOREST TREESRainforest wood can be used in many different ways. For example: tropical hardwoods (such as teak and mahogany) are used in luxury furniture or veneers (for less luxury items). Paper is also another very good and helpful use for rainforest wood. Besides providing us with furniture and paper it also gives shelter for animals, so when loggers chop down trees they are also chopping down an animals home. Which usually results in that animals death.

THE FUTURE OF DEFORESTATON

This picture shows the astonishing affect of deforestation. If logging continues by around 2050 the rainforest could be wiped out entirely.

WEBSITESwww.rain-tree.comwww.rainforestconcern.org.uksimple.www.wikipedia.org/wiki/rainforest