The Amazon Rainforest 2005
By the numbers...
20 May 2005
4 billion The tonnage of wood the paper industry will be consuming annually by 2020 if it keeps up its current rate of production.
5,600 The acreage of rainforest destroyed to establish one pulpwood plant, which then consumes 2,000 tons of wood every day producing the electricity needed to run the factory.
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17.3 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed.
137 Plant and animal species become extinct every day as a result of rainforest depletion.
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20 million people call the Amazon basin home, including 400 indigenous groups.
70 per cent of all logged timber ends up as unusable fragments or sawdust.
50 per cent of all the world's forests have disappeared.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=639819