Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest

How Many Football Fields of the Amazon Rain forest Are Being Cut down Every Minute?

Statistics say that we are losing 2.4 acres of rain forest per second. That is equal to two U.S. football fields per second or 120 football fields per minute. There is about 78 million acres of rain forest being destroyed each year.

The main sources of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest are human settlement and development of the land. In the nine years from 1991 to 2000, the total area of Amazon Rainforest cleared rose from 415,000 to 587,000 km²; comparable to Spain, Madagascar or Manitoba. Most of this lost forest has been replaced with pasture for cattle. In February 2008, the Brazilian government announced that the rate at which the Amazon rainforest was being destroyed had been accelerating noticeably during the time of the year that it normally slows: In just the last five months of 2007, more than 3,200 sq. kilometers, an area equivalent to the state of Rhode Island, was deforested. The Amazon rainforest continues to shrink but more recently the rate of deforestation has been slowing, with the 2011 figures showing the slowest rate of deforestation since records have been kept.

References

1. ^ Various (2001). Bierregaard, Richard; Gascon, Claude; Lovejoy, Thomas E.; Mesquita, Rita, ed. Lessons from Amazonia: The Ecology and Conservation of a Fragmented Forest. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08483-8.
2. Jump up^ Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) (2004)
3. Jump up^ Staff (2008-02-07). "Amazon Deforestation Rate Escalates". The Real Truth. Retrieved 2008-08-19.
4. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f} INPE figures August to July