Climateologists also warn of decreased rainfall and believe that the hardest hit areas could be parts of The United states. Rainforests also play a role in recycling the earth s water as moisture is absorbed by the trees and evaporated into the atmosphere to return as rainfall. The roots of the trees also help anchor the soil and slow water runoff. Without the forests to store water, streams can disappear during the dry season and deprive human populations of water. This is already happening in parts of Africa.
Some scientists claim that areas as large as the state of Delaware are being cleared every month.
One of the major problems with clearing the rainforest is that the soil base is poor compared to the rich, deep soils of the Midwestern regions of the United States. Soil in rainforests is shallow and nutrient poor. Erosion and exposure to the sun takes its toll on the exposed land. Even when the rainforest is regrown it never comes close to the diverse, rich environment it once was. Resource-poor countries such as Japan, rely on the timber products for the processing of packages, while poorer countries like the Republic of Congo rely on selling the wood products to support their economies.