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Amazon is the world's largest deforestation front and action is urgently required to avoid a large-scale irreversible environmental catastrophe. WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) predicts that if the current rate of deforestation continues, 27 percent - more than a quarter - of the Amazon biome will be without trees by 2030.
Deforestation in the Amazon has been predominantly the result of subsistence farmers for much of human history, who cut down trees to grow crops for their families and local consumption.
But that started to change in the latter part of the 20th century, with a growing proportion of deforestation being caused by industrial activities and large-scale farming. By the 2000s, cattle-ranching was responsible for more than three-quarters of the Amazon forest clearing.
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