One of the most pressing needs will be for agricultural land, but the resources in the forests go much deeper than this: rivers can be dammed for electricity generation, minerals under the forest can be exploited for industry, and the forested areas themselves can yield many different forest products and timber.

Much of the land clearance during recent decades has been haphazard, taking place spontaneously without any form of control or planning. Landless settlers have hacked down and burned thousands of square kilometers of either undisturbed or logged forest. They gain access to the land by using roads built by governments, or by logging or mining companies, into previously inaccessible forest. The result has frequently been severe environmental degradation.

With the ever-increasing population pressure in tropical forest countries, it is inevitable that this type of deforestation will continue. But these people are no more the root cause of the destruction than soldiers are of wars. Poverty, population growth, and unequal land ownership are the fundamental causes of this land conversion.

It is not only the poor who are placing demands on the rain forest. It is the rich industrialized countries that provide the demand that drives the tropical timber trade and the markets for the beef cattle that graze on pastures that were once rain forest. There is also the web of international debt that has grown between the industrialized and Third World nations which often forces those countries with rain forests to over exploit them.

It is clear that we will not be able to maintain all of nature's wonders forever in pristine condition. Those areas that are an exceptionally rich biological resource need to be preserved intact as protected parks, and the indigenous peoples should be given the chance to continue to manage their land without intrusions from outside. The rest may be sustainably managed in the way best suited to the land, whether agriculture, forestry, or industry.
 
 

		Reasons for Concern
		Forest Products
		Genetic Diversity / Drug Research
		Ecosystem Processes &    Environmental Protection
		How to Help and Get Involved