Wood has always been a primary forest product for human populations and industrial interests. Since wood is an important structural component of any forest, its removal has immediate implications on forest health. Intensive harvests can lead to severe degradation, even beyond a forests capacity to recover. When the soil has been stripped of its nutrients, farmers move further into the forests in search of new land. Mining for valuable resources also plays a major role.
Deforestation has many devastating effects.
It affects climate significantly, in part because the forest plays a major role in the water cycle, recycling rain back into the clouds as it receives rainfall. As a result, when the land is cleared, flooding and drought become serious problems, as rainwater travels quickly through the ground without the forest to regulate it. It threatens the existence of indigenous peoples. There have been more extinctions of tribal peoples in this century than any other, with Brazil losing 87 tribes between 1900 and 1950. Deforestation robs the world of countless species, destroying crucial biodiversity and losing species with potential uses in medicine, agriculture and industry.