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| A Brazilian farmer assesses a former stretch of rainforest cleared for agriculture. Environmentalists have expressed alarm at the destruction of the Amazon rainforests, home to 30 percent of the world's plant and animal species. According to Worldwatch Institute, Brazil lost 23.1 million hectares of forest in the past decade, an area roughly the size of Kansas. Worldwide, population growth and industrialization have reduced by half the hectares of forest per person since 1960. With deforestation comes loss of wildlife (some of it useful to humans). Many of the world's largest remaining forests are in the developing world, where deforestation proceeds most rapidly.
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| Photo: Reuters/Gregg Newton |
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