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Some claim that rainforests are being destroyed at an ever-quickening pace. [48] The London-based Rainforest Foundation notes that "the UN figure is based on a definition of forest as being an area with as little as 10% actual tree cover, which would therefore include areas that are actually savanna-like ecosystems and badly damaged forests". [49]
For the 300 years following the arrival of Europeans, land was cleared, mostly for agriculture, at a rate that matched that of population growth. [7] During the 19th century, while the U.S. population tripled, the total area of cropland increased by over four times, from seventy-six million to three hundred nineteen million acres.
Deforestation in Central America is one of the environmental problems that is linked to the settlement of agrarian frontier areas by land-seeking farmers and commercial agrarians, who facilitated the conversion of forest land to pasture, more expansion of cash crop like coffee, banana, logging activities, pasture and fuelwoods among other urbanization activities. [2]
Swathes of the Amazon and Indonesian rainforest are regularly up in flames — often started deliberately by those clearing land or burning felled trees — that can sometimes spread uncontrollably.
More than 50% of wetlands in the U.S. have been destroyed in just the last 200 years. [8] Between 60% and 70% of European wetlands have been completely destroyed. [13] In the United Kingdom, there has been an increase in demand for coastal housing and tourism which has caused a decline in marine habitats over the last 60 years.
The Amazon rainforest, spanning an area of 3,000,000 km 2 (1,200,000 sq mi), is the world's largest rainforest. It encompasses the largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest on the planet, representing over half of all rainforests.
Tropical rainforests once covered 13% of Earth's surface. Now, only one-third of that remains intact, according to a new study. Only one-third of tropical rainforests remain intact, study says
[10] 98% of forest cover in the United States is natural with the remaining 2% being plantation land. 33% of the United States is made up of forests. Out of the 33% of the U.S. covered by forests, 37% make up subtropical forests. 48% make up temperate forests.