Human Impact
One of the most devastating issues affecting all tropical rainforests on Earth is the rapid deforestation that has arisen over the last several years. Over 90,000 square miles of tropical rainforests are harvested for human use each year, which translates to about 2% of the globe's rainforests being lost each year to humans. The act of removing trees from rainforests poses several problems that affect the globe as a whole: the machinery used to remove plants releases carbon into the atmosphere and plants release carbon into the atmosphere when they are cut down. The constantly increasing amount of carbon in our atmosphere is believed by many experts to be accelerating global warming, which could increase the temperature of rainforests at a much faster rate and cause even more problems in coming years. Additionally, when plants are removed from tropical rainforests the animals that rely on them for food and shelter are removed or die off too. Approximately 137 species of plants and animals are lost in tropical rainforests all over the globe each day. This is leading to a rapid decrease in tropical rainforests' and the Earth as a whole's biodiversity.