The Amazon rainforest is being rapidly destroyed, with 20% of its trees cut down in just the last 40 years. This deforestation is having devastating environmental impacts, including reducing the forest's ability to regulate the Earth's oxygen and climate, wiping out habitats for plants and animals so that 100 species are becoming extinct every day, and causing desertification as the thin soil is washed away once the trees are removed. Traditional agricultural practices that worked with the forest ecology, like Yakihata, provide a more sustainable alternative to deforestation for agriculture and pasturage that is spreading desertification and food crises around the world.