Depopulation may be harming the Amazon rainforest

Urbanization may be having unexpected impacts in the Amazon rainforest by leaving forest areas vulnerable to exploitation by outsiders, report researchers writing in Conservation Letters.

Conducting field surveys during the course of 10,000-kilometers of travel along remote Amazon rivers, Luke Parry of Lancaster University found that a sharp decrease in rural habitation has not been accompanied by a decline in harvesting of wildlife and forest resources, indicating that urban populations exact a heavy toll on distant forests through hunting, fishing, logging, and harvesting of non-timber forest products.

How Much Rainforest Is Destroyed Each Day?

 Dear EarthTalk: Do you have current facts and figures about how much rainforest is being destroyed each day around the world, and for what purpose(s)?

 Pinning down exact numbers is nearly impossible, but most experts agree that we are losing upwards of 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest daily, and significantly degrading another 80,000 acres every day on top of that. Along with this loss and degradation, we are losing some 135 plant, animal and insect species every day—or some 50,000 species a year—as the forests fall.

Population density corresponds with forest loss in the Congo Basin

Africa's greatest rainforest ecosystem, the Congo Basin, has undergone significant deforestation and degradation during the past century. A new study in the open access journal Tropical Conservation Science examined whether or not there was a connection between population density and forest loss.

Since the 1980s the Congo rainforest has had the highest rate of deforestation of any tropical region in the world. A combination of commercial logging, illegal logging, clearing for agriculture, mining, and civil wars has devastated much of the forest. The booming bushmeat trade is another threat to the Congo's wildlife. The Congo rainforest is home to some of the world's most celebrated and endangered wildlife, including forest elephants, okapi, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. Some 10,000 animal species have been discovered in the Congo.

Last chance to save Bangladeshi forest: 90 percent of the Sal ecosystem is gone

Considered the most threatened ecosystem in Bangladesh, the moist deciduous Sal forest (Shorea robusta) is on the verge of vanishing. In 1990 only 10 percent of the forest cover remained, down from 36 percent in 1985 according to statistics from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). A new study in the online open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science looks at the threats posed to the Shal forest and ways in which it may still be saved.

The Sal forest in central and northern Bangladesh has long been used by local communities for everything from medicine to food and boat construction to fuel. However due to increasing population, the forest has long been over-exploited. In addition, rubber monoculture, commercial fuel-wood plantations, grazing, urbanization, and expanding agriculture have drastically reduced Bangladesh's Sal forest. On top of habitat loss, the biodiversity of the Sal forest is suffering from illegal poaching.