Farming, logging, mining and other forms of development are destroying rainforests. With the loss of each acre of rainforest, hundreds of species disappear forever.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has compiled and published a red list of threatened species. The updated list is available on their website at www.iucn.org.

The population of the mountain gorilla has decreased to about 900. This is due to traps, kidnapping, poaching, loss of habitat and even lack of food. Some gorillas are also killed for meat. Furthermore, interaction with tourists is also to blame for this decline.

1. Trees are important to the water cycle. They absorb rain fall and produce water vapor that is released into the atmosphere. Trees also lessen the pollution in water.
2. When cattle ranchers clear rain forests to raise beef to sell to fast-food chains that make hamburgers to sell to Americans, who have the highest rate of heart disease in the world (and spend the most money per GNP on health care), we can say easily that business is no longer developing the world. We have become its predators.
3. The tropical rain forests are a telling example. Once cut down, they rarely recover. Rainfall drops, deserts spread, the climate warms.
4. Forests are the world’s air-conditioning system – the lungs of the planet – and we are on the verge of switching it off.
5. [Destroying rain forest for economic gain] is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.