It is also wasting four times as much paper as is used by all the countries of the Third World put together. Tropical timber is one of the leading exports of the Third World. It earns as much as cotton, twice as much as rubber and three times as much as cocoa. Trees bind the earth with their roots, protecting the soil from erosion and reducing the evaporation of water. When they are cut down the earth is left naked, to be flushed away by rain or desiccated by the sun and attacked by wind.
Deforestation is a major factor in the increase of floods.
Although it is debatable as to whether or not trees themselves actually produce rain, droughts have increased dramatically in areas of the world where deforestation is most severe. Many trees were cut down because agriculture expanded, prices for charcoal increased and animal fodder grew scarce. Today much of the country is desert. Every year about 15 million acres of land becomes desert, and a further 53 million acres are so degraded that crop production becomes uneconomic. The worldwide rural population affected by serious desertification rose from 57 million people in 1977 to 135 million in 1984.