One obvious reason for the loss of so much rainforest is logging. Timber companies use the precious tropical trees to make their wood products, even though once these rainforests are destroyed they can never return to the value they were before. These trees can easily be substituted by other woods that would be much more beneficial. Since the tropical rainforests are there now, the loggers have decided to use them instead of waiting a few years for tree plantations to harvest. Another reason for the rising deforestation rate are shifted cultivators.
Shifted cultivators are peasants pushed off their own land and who have moved into the rainforest.
They survive by clearing the land to grow their crops, which adds to the rainforest's destruction. However, it is not the shifted cultivators who are to blame for damages to the rainforest, but rather the governments and corporations. They push these peasants off their land so they can expand their industries. The solution is to give the peasants rights and to keep them on their land. Furthermore, since the rainforest soil does not stay fertile for long, the peasants are forced to move deeper in the forest, destroying more and more as they go.