ABO EBAM, Nigeria — Deep in Africa’s rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. The sound of destruction echoes from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.
From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia’s archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking rain forests.
Conservationists sounded the alarm decades ago, but the picture has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.
Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples’ livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But now, global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.
