Tropical rain forests play a major role in sustaining all the earth’s living things, both plants and animals.
Trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.
Fewer trees mean that more carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming as well as to destruction of places for plants and animals to live.
Also, with fewer trees, less moisture evaporates into the atmosphere, meaning that less rain may fall in the surrounding region.
Tropical rain forests contain about half the plant and animal species in the world.
If these species lose their habitats, they will begin to die off, and some species may disappear forever.
