Tropical Rainforests - Deforestation

- Population pressure, as the population increases, trees are cleared to make land for new settlements

- Mineral extraction, minerals (e.g gold and iron ore) are mined and sold to make money

- Energy development, building dams to generate hydro-electric power floods large areas of forest.

- Commercial logging, trees are felled to make money. Road building also requires tree clearance

- Commercial farming, forest is cleared to make space for cattle grazing, palm oil or soya plantations.

- Subsidence farming, forest is cleared so farmers can grow food for theselves and their families.

- With no trees to hold soil together, heavy rain wahes away the soil (soil erosion). This can lead to landslides and flooding

- Without a tree canopy to intercept rainfall and tree roots to absorb it, more water reaches the soil which reduces soil fertility as nutrients in the soil are washed away

- Trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Burning vegetation produces CO2.

- Logging, farming and mining create jobs for locals

- Money is made selling timber,mining and commercial farming

- Deforestation can destroy resources that countries dpend on and reduce atractiveness of the area for tourists

- Amazon is the largest rainforest on Earth, covering 8 million km2, covering Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana

- Since 1978, over 750,000km2 has been destroyed by deforestation

- Population growth and migration to the area is putting pressure on the Amazon, especially as the Brazillian government offers land to poor people from overcrowded cities.

- The Amazon stores around 100bn tonnes of CO2

- Deforestation will release some of the CO2 and add to global warming

- Brazil loses 55m of topsoil every year due to soil erosion caused by soy farming

- Economic development has brought wealth to countries that are poor

- Farming makes money e.g. Brazil made $6.9bn from trading cattle in 2008

- The mining industry creates jobs e.g. the Buenaventura mine company in Peru employs over 3100 people

- Logging contributes to a huge amount of Brazil's economy

- Local Brazillian rubber tappers who extract natural rubber from rubber trees have lost their livelihoods as trees have been cut down.