Humans have degraded or destroyed about two-thirds of the world’s original tropical rainforest cover, new data revealed, raising alarm that a key natural buffer against climate change is quickly vanishing.
The forest loss is also a major contributor of climate-warming emissions, with the dense tropical forest vegetation representing the largest living reservoir of carbon.
Logging and land conversion, mainly for agriculture, have wiped out 34 percent of the world’s original old-growth tropical rainforests, and degraded another 30 percent, leaving them more vulnerable to fire and future destruction, an analysis by the non-profit Rainforest Foundation Norway said.
More than half of the destruction since