Why is the rainforest being destroyed? What problems does this destruction cause? Two relevant questions, considering that the rainforests make up such a large portion of the oxygen productio for our earth! So what are we doing to the forests? Read on to find out.

Rainforests used to cover around 14% of the earth's surface, but now that figure has been reduced to 6% and biologists estimate that it could be completely gone within 40 years.

One of the main reasons for this cruel deforestation is wood. Many of the trees in the rainforest are very valuable, for example teak or mahogany, and can be sold for a lot of money. However, these trees are interspersed with other, less valuable, trees. In order to get to the valuable trees, foresters break through the forests, showing no respect for any other trees in their way.

The excess trees that are cut down can be "baked" to create charcoal, a cheap fuel used by large companies and also local people for burning.

Before the deforestation, though, comes another issue. In order to get to the trees they wish to cut down, people have to build roads. Several thousands of kilometres of roads slice through the forest, connecting the cities to the forests and creating short-cuts: Who would want to go around the rainforest, when they can go through it? But these roads are dirt roads. Not only are the ground and the trees being destroyed to create these roads, but as the roads are un-surfaced, they are easily washed away. They quickly become dirt-rivers instead of dirt roads.

Of course, with the roads come the people. They move into the forest to escape the big cities, or are offloaded there by the government in their project to relocate the poor to the forest. The people hope to make a life for themselves in the forest. But it's not that easy.

The people need wood for building, which is plentiful, of course. They are each given a plot of land to farm, but the soil in the rainforest is poor. After only a few years, it will become useless and crops won't grow on it anymore. So, the people must move on and find a new plot of land. This is a slow destruction of the forest.

A larger scale destruction of the forest through urbanisation is development. This is another of the government's projects. The government sells large areas of land in the rainforest to companies for cattle ranching. But in order to have the cattle there, the forest needs to be destroyed.

However, as much larger areas of the forest are

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