Statistics from the late 1980s estimated that worldwide, tropical moist forests (TMF) cover an estimated 2.2 billion acres, with 58 percent in Latin America, 19 percent in Africa and 23 percent in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Thirty-three percent is in Brazil, while Zaire and Indonesia each have 10 percent.
Deforestation is an important issue because it depletes a natural resource critical to indigenous people, cannot be replaced overnight, and has far-reaching side effects. It contributes to other environmental problems, including desertification, soil erosion, flooding, mud slides, siltation and sedimentation, habitat destruction and species extinction, and salt and chemical degradation. It is accompanied by economic, health and social hardships forced on people trying to live and cope with their drastically changed environment. Some scientists predict that deforestation contributes to global climate change and disturbs the oxygen and carbon dioxide cycle.
There is no single cause or effect of deforestation. Ranching, farming, mining and lumbering all cut into the tropical forests. Poverty and an ever-increasing population puts greater and greater pressure on people to clear forests for cultivation because the demand for land no longer lets them practice shifting cultivation (leaving cultivated land fallow for several years to allow recovery) on existing lands. The same population increase that leads to clearing forests for cultivation also leads to using forests for grazing. This destroys undergrowth and seedlings that replace mature trees cut for fuelwood and other purposes. Accidental and purposeful fires also contribute to the destruction of forest resources. The future of the Amazon rainforest doesn't look good. [More information]
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