Shades of Green: Earth's Forests -- Tropical Forests

The Amazon rainforest is the largest expanse of tropical forest in the world. Until recently, its size meant that humans stayed mostly around the edges, and the forest remained relatively intact. But more and more of the forest is now being destroyed, although estimates vary on exactly how much is gone and how much remains. The tropical forest contains many valuable timber species such as mahogany, and large corporations buy the land or licences to log it. Often, these companies are located far away from the forest itself -- companies from Malaysia, Singapore, and other Asian countries now control large tracts of Amazonian rainforest.

Commercial logging is not the only cause of rainforest destruction however. Some areas of forest are simply burned and turned into pastures and croplands. Rainforest soils are notoriously poor and unsuitable for agriculture. After a few years of growing crops, an area of former forest often has to be abandoned because the soil has degraded so much, and a new area of rainforest is burned for crops. The fires set to clear the rainforest are often so vast that they can be seen from space. So much land has been burned and cleared for crops that Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of soybeans. The destruction of tropical forests is not limited to the Amazon. Over 60% of the lowland forests in Central America have already been cut down, mostly to make room for cattle ranching, to produce beef that is shipped to the United States for hamburgers.

tropical rain forest -- page 6 of 6
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