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Vast areas of the rainforest are cleared very fast at the rate of 80%. 5000 km squared of land was lost in 2015. A lot of land is cleared for cattle grazing and farms. 🙊🐵🙈🐔

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Benin didn't start out with great amounts of forest cover -- only about 16% of the land used to be forested -- and a high deforestation rate of 31% doesn't help preserve what remains. Less than 4% of those original forests remain, and none in a frontier forest state.

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Settlement: Land is being cleared for new homes and settlements. There is more need for these in countries with increasing populations, especially around large overcrowded cities.

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Logging, including illegal logging, is a driver of deforestation. In Indonesia, illegal logging operations provide short term income for people living on less than $1 a day. However, it destroys the livelihoods of those who depend on the forest. Indonesia is one of the largest exporters of timber, with about 80 percent it being exported illegally.  It is estimated that organized criminals get between $10-15 billion dollars from illegal logging per year. 🌲🌱🌿🌳🍃

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The islands that make up the Philippines used to be all forested. Today only 35% of those forests remain; the only (slightly) good news in that is about 28% remain as frontier forest. But with a deforestation rate over the past twenty or so years of 26%, the future isn't so bright.

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dug out for minerals, soy farms and dams

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Timber harvesting-- timer is being cut down for human uses such as making paper, for home usages and furniture.

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About half the land in Nigeria used to be covered in trees. Today all but about 10% of those have been chopped down, and less than one percent exist as frontier forest. Nigeria has removed 36% of its trees in the past two decades.

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Historically Honduras was pretty much entirely covered by trees, with half a percent of the land not forested. Today about half of that remains (52%), with just about 16% existing in a frontier front state. Between 1990-2005, Honduras saw a decline of 37% in its forest cover.

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Road building has its impacts too. Access via roads gives people and heavy machinery access into places nobody has thought of. The development of  the Brazil Trans-Amazonian Highway would have been disastrous (Figure 5). This was a 2,000 mile road into the forest which would have allowed for massive rail transport. Also, this was designed to move people to more rural locations

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Overpopulation--Our planet once housed an estimated maximum of 15 million people in prehistory. It now sustains a whopping 7 billion and counting. With overpopulation, there is an increase in global needs and wants, leading to expansion and deforestation. The planet’s forests are being devastated at an even rate with population growth.

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Deforestation is done for illegal logging and spectator paths

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With overpopulation, there is an increase in global needs and wants, leading to expansion and deforestation

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One of the causes of deforestation is so that roads can be built and transport routs can be created. This helps to be able to transport recourses and goods to ports and industries across the country. An example of this is the trans-Amazonian Highway. This highway is 5300km long and crosses the north of Africa🚗🗺🚦

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is completely deforested. Soil is often removed with high-pressure hoses and chemicals are used. The run-off goes into local rivers and pollute them. Huge open-cast pits are left – the soil can’t recover.

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Over the past twenty years or so the deforestation rate has been 8% and over 70% of historic forest cover remains

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to create timber also for commercial use in factories to make furniture exc. Trees are cut down and dragged out of the rainforest by cars, destroying even more foliage. these trees are normally highly prized for their expensive timber.

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Commercial logging companies cut down trees for timber, which is mostly sold to developed countries. In most cases, large areas of forest are destroyed just to remove a few highly valued trees. The effect of this devastation has lasting consequences:

heavy machinery compacts soil and makes it more vulnerable to erosion

silt is washed into rivers

logging roads open up the area to new settlers who remove even more trees

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To create ingredients that are highly prized consumer items such as oul from palm trees

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Infrastructure expansion-- new road construction may cause deforestation as a lot of space is needed to build roads to travel on

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Fuelwood, Many people rely on wood for their main source of fuel, particularly in developing countries. As the population grows, more wood is chopped down.

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Road construction can lead to deforestation by providing an entryway to previously remote land. This happens in the Amazon rainforest and in Africa

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Seventy percent of the world’s plants and animals live in forests and are losing their habitats to deforestation, according to National Geographic. Loss of habitat can lead to species extinction.

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To create room for cattle ranching

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Dam Building, these provide hydro electric energy but also result in deforestation

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Deforestation happens to be able to relocate population and create homes for people who are living in shanty towns in southern cities.

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Deforestation also happens to retrieve minerals from the soil

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Farmers cut down trees to produce crops for their families and for local consumption. This causes deforestation. 🌱🍏

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A 2009 Greenpeace report found that the cattle sector in the Brazilian Amazon, supported by the international beef and leather trades, was responsible for about 80% of all deforestation in the region,  or about 14% of the world's total annual deforestation, making it the largest single driver of deforestation in the world.

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the amazon rainforest is being cleared to make room for the growth of rubber and other commercial trees that are cut down and sold off once they grow for use as raw materials in factories. they are grown here due to the conditions that the rainforest creates which is perfect for their growth.

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Deforestation is done because of needed space for cattle ranching

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An estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest, which is roughly the size of the country of Panama, are lost each year, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

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Natural causes as hurricanes, fires, parasites and floods

Human activities as agricultural expansion, cattle breeding, timber extraction, mining, oil extraction, dam construction and infrastructure development.

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Cattle ranching, this is a leading cause because the amazon rainforest is destroyed in order to make room for cattle that are being reared in the destroyed rainforest area

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The increase in global demand for commodities, such as palm oil and soybeans, are driving industrial-scale producers to clear forests at an alarming rate!

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Forest clearing for livestock ranching is another contributor

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To make more land available for housing and urbanization
To harvest timber to create commercial items such as paper, furniture and homes

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289,000 square miles have been cleared from the amaOn rainforest