Estimates are that every minute ninety acres of tropical rainforest are cut down. The greatest destruction of these forests is occurring in Central and South America, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. 60% of this clear cutting is done for farm and ranchland. 26% is for wood products, and 14% is for fuel wood gathering.

Farming land that was formerly a tropical rainforest is very difficult. Rainforest soil is thin and infertile, partly because of the heavy rains that wash the nutrients out of the soil and leave behind high concentrations of iron and aluminum oxides, which makes growing crops nearly impossible. To put nutrients back into the soil, farmers in the tropics will burn the trees they cut down. This allows nutrients that are stored in the trees to spread out into the soil.

This farming technique has been practiced for hundreds of years but now more and more people are moving into the rainforest and practicing this "slash and burn" farming. The forests never get a chance to recover before they are cut down again.