Deforestation:

- The statistics from the World Resources Internet show that 80 percent of the Earth's forests have been cut down;
- Approximately 90 percent of West Africa's coastal rain forests have been destroyed since 1900;
- The rich forests of Brazil and Indonesia are being cut down for the purposes of agriculture and animal grazing, and heating;
- Deforestation causes destruction of the natural habitat of the animals living in the forest, which is 70 percent of the animals worldwide;
- It is also said that cutting down the rain forests has resulted in droughts in the countries of West Africa such as Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, since the rain forests help generate rainfall;
- Trees are also natural absorbers of the greenhouse gases which cause global warming. As well as burning the trees causes a release of more carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, increasing the effect of the global warming;

National Geographic; Forest Holocaust; (online article, last viewed on 16th January 2012 at www.nationalgeographic.com);