Environment Concerns: Conflicts in the Rainforest

Every second, 1.5 acres of trees are cut down in a rainforest. That’s equivalent to two football pitches per second. At this rate, the Amazon rainforest will become devoid of life by 2030. Cutting down trees not only damages large habitual areas of the estimated 30 million people who live in the rainforest along with the animals they solely depend on, but affects the environment in many harmful ways. This can be through rapid and violent changes in the climate, an unbalanced ratio of carbon dioxide to oxygen impacting hugely on global warming, damage to the biodiversity of animals and tribes and fatal effects to the soil. Trees that are cut down can be used for a variety of different common purposes including rubber, oil, wax, glue and, more importantly, fuel. However, the list does not stop there. Trees are cut down to gain access to medicinal plants and create vast spaces to mine important ores. Yet possibly the biggest reason trees are cut down is to grow food. Commercial farmers need more land space to cultivate crops to feed our ever growing population as well as local farmers providing food for their family.
At the moment, subsistence farming is responsible for 48% of deforestation, farming used for our personal use makes up 32% of deforestation, logging makes up 14% of deforestation and wood used for fuel makes up 5% of deforestation. The rest of deforestation is taken up by illegal logging and fuel use. Subsistence farming consists of local farmers cultivating the land for their own personal use. This way of living has dramatically increased in the past 100 years, mainly in rural parts of Africa and large areas of Asia and South America. This form of farming, although it seems enticing as home grown produce is usually delicious, comes at a high price. As subsistence farming is generally used by people of the rainforest, Papua New Guinea and African rainforests, trees are necessary to be cut down to clear an area of land of fertile soil. Subsistence