rce for grazing pastures for cattle, orchards and housing. The governments have turned their backs on this growing problem and shut their eyes to the advantages of rebuilding these forests. As the tropical rainforests are being destroyed not enough action is being taken to stop the destruction and rebuild the forest.Count to sixty. In those sixty seconds, 75 acres of tropical rainforest was lost (RPN. p.1). This adds up to over 108,000 acres a day, and 39 million a year (R.P.N. p.1)! It is at this rate that the world’s supply of rainforests went from the original 4 Billion acres down to only 2.7 billion that remain today (see index 1A and 1B). While the main reason for most of this destruction is to mine the land, many well-known U.S. companies buy wood from the rainforest just because it is cheaper (because of the location of the forests and use of third world labor). And the area where this wood is harvested is usually clear-cut. Then the land is used for grazing cattle that are killed and sold to other prominent U.S. companies. What these companies do not realize, or choose to ignore, is the destruction of the resources.Many indigenous people in the forests have strong ties to their land. They have lived for centuries in sustainable existence with the forest itself and are distraught by the destruction that is ruining their home. As a wise Indigenous man once said:“The earth is our historian, our educator, the provider of food, medicine, clothing and protection. She is the mother of our races (R.A.N p.3).” These people have been living in the forest for centuries. These people have been losing their land and their lives to deforestation efforts by the Europeans and the Americans in the 14th through the 20th century. The desertification process is affecting many of the animals that live in the rainforest. Many of these animals are losing their homes and are dying out. In a four-mile square of the Bra...
