How much of the Amazon has been deforested?

In the Amazon, around 17% of the forest has been lost in the last 50 years, mostly due to forest conversion for cattle ranching. Forests cover 31% of the land area on our planet.

How is the Amazon rainforest being destroyed?

The ever-growing human consumption and population is the biggest cause of forest destruction due to the vast amounts of resources, products, services we take from it. Direct human causes of deforestation include logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, mining, oil extraction and dam-building.

How much of the Amazon rainforest is destroyed every day?

The Amazon rainforest is losing about 10,000 acres a day.

Why is deforestation in the Amazon?

Cattle ranching is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. In Brazil, this has been the case since at least the 1970s: government figures attributed 38 percent of deforestation from 1966-1975 to large-scale cattle ranching. Today the figure in Brazil is closer to 70 percent.

How did deforestation start in the Amazon?

Large-scale deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon began in the 1960s, when government incentives to clear land for production coincided with more effective tools such as chainsaws and bulldozers.

What effects does deforestation have?

The loss of trees and other vegetation can cause climate change, desertification, soil erosion, fewer crops, flooding, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a host of problems for indigenous people.

Why did deforestation start in the Amazon?

For most of human history, deforestation in the Amazon was primarily the product of subsistence farmers who cut down trees to produce crops for their families and local consumption. The result of this shift is forests in the Amazon were cleared faster than ever before in the late 1970s through the mid 2000s.

Who started deforestation in the Amazon?