In less than 50 years, more than half of the world's tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, over 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is over 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres are lost every year!

Tropical deforestation annually accounts for about 8 billion tons of CO2 - as much as the combined fossil fuel emissions of the US and European Union. The environmental value of curbing deforestation therefore exceeds anything deliverable by the Kyoto Treaty. 

Ninety percent of Brazilians live on 10 percent of the land, mostly along the 322-kilometer-wide east coast region. The Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) once stretched continuously along the entire coast of Brazil, extending far inland, and covering an area equivalent to France and Spain combined. Today, less than 7 percent of it remains, all in scattered fragments, and it is one of the world's two most threatened tropical forests. Many of Brazil's 303 species of fauna threatened with extinction are in the Atlantic Forest region, which contains 25 percent of all forms of animal and plant life existing on the planet. The region's biodiversity is forty times greater than the Amazon's.

    Since most deforestation is caused by marginal agriculture and low value logging, it makes no sense that a fair value is not placed on the environmental service provided globally by rainforest.

Leading causes of tropical deforestation include:

                                                    i.      Debt Burden                                                                                                       

  The countries with the largest rainforest areas are also among the world’s most heavily indebted countries. In many countries a vicious circle has arisen: loans used to finance environmentally destructive projects can only be repaid through further destructive resource exploitation.  We must raise a united voice to urge creditor countries and institutions to cancel the debt of the most heavily forested Third World countries. 

                                                 ii.      Commercial Logging

Commercial logging is the major cause of primary rainforest destruction in South East Asia and Africa.  While 75% of land being cleared by peasant farmers is land that has been previously logged, commercial logging accounts for the destruction of over 10 million acres annually.  CO2 is  added to the atmosphere  when stumps and slash are burned.

                                               iii.      The Cash Crop Economy

 The Cash Crop Economy is an integral part of Third World "development" and a major cause of deforestation. The best land is taken to earn export income, which is all too often used to service foreign debt. Peasants are forced onto marginal lands, resulting in deforestation, land degradation and poverty. Extensive areas of Brazil and Thailand now provide feed for Europe's cattle, much of it at the expense of the rainforest. In Malaysia, over 8 million acres of forest have been cleared for rubber and oil palm plantations. Worldwide, between 2.5 and 13 million acres of forest are destroyed annually to grow and cure tobacco.

iv.        Colonization Schemes

In Indonesia, the transmigrasi program clears vast areas of rainforest for plantations or smallholdings. Rainforests are invariably unsuited to permanent agriculture, and so these often fail. One-third of Indonesia's forest has gone since 1950, and the rate of deforestation is accelerating. Many tribal groups have lost their land and been forcibly integrated into the dominant Indonesian culture. In Brazil, half of the population is composed of landless peasants, and the Government has promoted colonization of the Amazon as a disastrous "solution" to the problem. As Brazil's former Environment Minister Jose Lutzenberger points out: "Policies for the last 30 years have deliberately gone against the interests of the peasants. The government has promoted only cash crops monoculture for export. In many cases huge estates have bought up the smallholdings and enormous soybean plantations were set up. There is no shortage of land in the south except the shortages created by the concentration of landholdings."

Mining, industrial development and hydroelectric schemes are also significant causes of deforestation, both in terms of the land they occupy and their displacement of forest people. Dams also open up previously inaccessible forest, spread water-borne diseases and damage downstream ecosystems. They are of benefit mainly to the middle classes and industry. In Brazil, the Grand Carajas Project, a huge milling development to provide cheap raw materials for the world market, will occupy 900,()00 sq km, an area the size of Britain and France combined. It is affecting 23 tribal groups, and causing extensive deforestation, soil erosion, air and water pollution.

Cattle Ranching

Ranching is a major cause of deforestation, particularly in Central and South America. In Central America, two-thirds of lowland tropical forests have been turned into pasture since 1950. Meat is too expensive for many of the poor in these beef-exporting countries, yet in some cases cattle have ousted highly productive traditional agriculture. In Brazil, ranching is used to claim title to land, often for speculative mineral development.  Over half the largest ranches in Amazonia have never sent cattle to market.