Rain forests are the tropical and equatorial forests of our planet; their name is due to the heavy and frequent rains that allow their growth and exceptional richness in biological variety.

These forests are essential for the environmental equilibrium of the Earth, because they produce oxygen (O2) absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2), to fix it to form their own tissue or to produce the carbohydrates that will provide energy for their life.

Moreover, the plants transpiration produces great amounts of water vapour and feeds its atmospheric circulation starting from the equatorial and tropical regions towards the rest of the world.
Where the forest are wide, the climate is never dry and they regulate the water flow in the territory and in the underground layers, absorbing it like sponges and releasing slowly and constantly.

Then, the trees roots keep stable the soil, preventing its erosion, especially in the mountainous zones, where the high slopes would dramatically enhance erosion.

Today, the destruction of rain forests is very intense, to obtain wood, soil for agriculture and breeding; every year, many thousands of Km2 of rain forests are destroyed so that all the benefits for the territory and climate listed above are lost within few years.

The soil remaining after deforestation is not very fertile and its humus, made of organic matter in decomposition and many microorganisms, is also very thin, only few tens of cm, given the high speed of its mineralization, in these conditions.
In fact, the roots of tropical trees and vegetables are very superficial, just to absorb the nutrients where these can be found.
The consequence is that, after few years of cultivation, this tropical soil must be abandoned, because peasants don't know more modern cultivation techniques to renew its nutritional content and new forest areas are cut or burned.

This primitive cultivation system is making disasters, contributing to the increasing dryness of tropical areas.
The soils loose their fertility also because, after the forest cutting, the intense tropical rains sweep away all the superficial fertile soil layer, leaving only stones and sterile soil under the burning sun.

Also cattle breeding for meat production, consumed ONLY in the richest Countries by 1.5 billions of people of the total 6.0 billions and more living in the world, pushes to forests cutting for new pastures and the soil remaining is as well turned into desert within few years by the massive

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