Large sections of the Amazon jungle are also currently being burned for farmland. As discussed earlier, tropical soils are not very fertile and within a few years they are abandoned to erosion. In Indonesia and other nations, large sections of forest are also being destroyed just to locate rare woods, such as mahogany and teak, for furniture. In some cases, industrialized nations are planting new trees and in Europe some farmland is being converted back to forest. Some Third World nations, such as Costa Rica, have attempted to preserve some of their forests through the establishment of parks and nature reserves.
Deforestation is nothing new.
Because of conservation efforts, declining rates in human population growth, and fewer farms, some parts of Europe are more forested today than they have been in hundreds of years. In the US, the west is being deforested. In particular, the old-growth forests , or trees that are older than about 100 years old, are also gone. However, decreases in the number of farms in the eastern US have actually resulted in reforestation. For example, much of North Carolina that was used for farming 50 to 100 years ago is now covered with forest.