Tropical Deforestation: A Global View
Article Summary and Author Biography
Tropical rain forest, today everywhere threatened with accelerating destruction, if conserved could be one of humanity's greatest renewable resources. In 1982 it occupied nearly 12 million (11,610,350) square kilometers of the continuously warm, high-rainfall areas of the globe that lie between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Wherever it remains it forms a three-dimensional carpet, 40 meters or more thick, of intricately interwoven and interdependent individuals of several millions of species (including both plants and animals), and many life-forms--more than are found in any other terrestrial ecosystem. Its preservation is important for many reasons, but perhaps the maintenance of this genetic diversity is ultimately the most important, because it offers endless opportunities for mankind, and because it is irreplaceable.
Nicholas Guppy, now living outside Cambridge, England, has been a close student of tropical rain forests for more than 35 years, with extensive early travels especially in British Guinea and the areas north of the Amazon. He was a research assistant of the New York Botanical Garden for two years; advised Daniel K. Ludwig upon his Venezuelan property, and Life magazine upon "The World We Live In"; edited the Macdonald Nature Encyclopedia with Sir Julian Huxley; and was then head of Granada Television's Natural History Film Unit.
We're sorry, but Foreign Affairs does not have the copyright to display this article online.
