Tropical rainforests cover about 6% of the Earth's surface and include areas like the Amazon, Central America, and Equatorial Africa. Deforestation of these areas has many harmful consequences and is primarily driven by slash-and-burn agriculture, plantation farming, commercial logging, cattle ranching, and fuel wood collection. Potential solutions include providing financial incentives to preserve forests, promoting sustainable farming practices, reducing demand for products causing deforestation, and replanting selected trees.

6.  Deforestation

8.  Tropical Rainforest refers to a tropical and
subtropical biome which is found around
equatorial and subtropical regions.
 Location: the regions with perennially
warm, humid climates and high
precipitation.
 Only about 6% of the earth’s surface is
covered with tropical rainforest. It includes
Amazon, C. America, Equatorial Africa,
etc.

9.  Deforestation
 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 For other uses, see
Deforestation (disambiguation).
 Satellite photograph of deforestation in
progress in the Tierras Bajas project in
eastern Bolivia.

10. Distribution of Tropical Rainforest
Amazon Equatorial Africa
Central America
South East Asia

13.  Destruction of these forests is fatal to us
because they play influential and indis-
pensable roles on the earth. Deleterious
consequences of the destruction of the
tropical rainforest are the following:

16.  Many Natives in the Amazon basin depend
on their environment for survival. Hence,
deforestation will have deleterious effects
on their life style and culture.

17. Process and Causes of Deforestation

18.  Slash-and-burn agriculture
 The agricultural technique practiced by the
penurious farmers in these regions. They
burn a small portion of forest, and plant
crops on the nutrient-rich ash. The fertility
of the soil, however, does not last long, so
the farmers abandon the land and burn
different trees. Continuation of such a
practice has proven to be detrimental.

19.  Surprisingly, it is estimated that nearly 2/3
of global deforestation is caused by these
poor, individual farmers.

20.  Plantation farming
 The tropical rainforest is replaced by cash
crop fields which can provide the country
more revenues. Cash crops include rubber,
coffee, and tea. It significantly reduces the
diverse gene pool of the tropical rainforest
as cash crop fields tend to be monotonous.

21.  Commercial logging
 Countries like Brazil and Indonesia are
cutting down the trees to sell the lumber to
the developed countries. Consumers in
relatively affluent countries have high
demands for good-quality timbers; hence,
developing countries are encouraged to
cut more trees to make more revenues.
By doing so, developing countries attempt
to enhance their economic conditions.

22.  Cattle ranching
 Some countries cut down the forests to
make room for cattle.

23.  Fuel wood and other domestic uses
 Trees are still the important fuels for
cooking and other domestic uses in
developing countries. Hence, many trees
are cut down and burnt by local people.

25. Brazil’s Foreign Debt (1995-2004)

26. Possible Solution for Deforestation

27.  Developed nations have already begun to
launch debt-for-nature campaign in
which they bought debts from Brazil for
preserving their Amazon forest.
 However, if a direct financial aid is given
to these countries in return for saving their
forest, the process of deforestation will be
halted even further.

28.  If we propagate modern technologies and
farming techniques to the tropical region,
we can reduce the rate of deforestation
significantly.

29.  Countries like Brazil are cutting down
trees to supply meat (cattle grazing) and
hard-woods to satisfy the demands from
the developed nations. Therefore,
reducing our superfluous demands for
such products can discourage the
process of deforestation.

30.  Though restoring the deforested area is
expensive and difficult, the planting of
fruits and selected hardwoods can be
economically beneficial for the
developing countries.

31. Conclusion