Deforestation In Ecuador

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Ecuador’s Deforestation And Biodiversity The deforestation rate in Ecuador continues to increase to this day. Deforestation is the destruction of forests in order to make more land available. Some causes of deforestation is for housing, harvest timber for things such as paper and furniture, agriculture, and to create ingredients that are highly prized items, such as oil from palm tree. It has been studied that within one hundred years, there won’t be any rainforests. Ecuador is ranked ninth in the world for deforestation and in addition to having the highest deforestation rate in South America. Ecuador has witnessed 22% of forest declines since 1990. Ecuador was originally largely forested, but today they have about two-thirds of that forest cover remaining. Ecuador is the eighth most biodiverse country on earth. By 2017, Ecuador is expecting to have zero deforestation. The country plans on focusing …show more content…
The country itself has had a loss of 140,000-495,000 acres of woodland. It has been unclear how fast these riches are being lost and need to slow down. More plants are harbored in Ecuador than the whole continent of North America itself. South America has the worst environmental record worldwide. With upcoming plans to help the deforestation decrease, Ecuador is hoping there is a dramatic increase in woodlands by 2017. These forests have a big variety of species, “Ecuador has almost 20,000 species of plants, over 1,500 species of birds, more than 840 species of reptiles and amphibians, and 341 species of mammals” (Mongabay 1). The deforestation is slowly affecting the wildlife in Ecuador. It is hard for animals to find food and shelter. There are species dying and slowly going extinct due to the lack of forests, their natural environment, and humans in the country feed off the species as