Half of [I 013 / all primary growth rainforest] has been destroyed. In the last ten years, the rate of deforestation has increased by around 50 percent. Throughout the world, 63,000 square miles of tropical forest are destroyed each year. For a more understandable comparison, this is the destruction of an area equal to six soccer fields every minute.
Amazonia has suffered its greatest deforestation from [P 003 & P053 / burning forest] to clear land for cattle ranches, and slash and burn cultivation. In 1988, 12,350 square miles of Brazilian rainforest, an area bigger than the country of Belgium, was burned for cattle pasture and cropland.
As a result of increased public knowledge about deforestation and its effects on [G 04 / biodiversity], climate control and watershed, the clearing of rainforest in Amazonia and elsewhere is decreasing in the 1990s (SEE GEOGRAPHY). However, if deforestation continues at its present rate, virtually all tropical forests will soon disappear.
