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Forests are a critical environmental and economic resource.
They guard against floods, landslides and other financially crippling natural disasters. They are essential to water quality and supply in many areas. They provide a crucial link in the planet's carbon cycle by sequestering large amounts of carbon. And they provide food, fuel, shelter, medicine and jobs for millions of the world's people, including many Americans. But forests around the world are being destroyed at rapid rates due to population pressures, subsistence agriculture, unsustainable and illegal logging, large-scale industrial and infrastructure projects, and national policies that subsidize forest conversion to other uses.