The state of Rond�nia in western Brazil is one of the most deforested parts of the Amazon. In the past three decades, clearing and degradation of the state�s original 51.4 million acres, an area slightly smaller than the state of Kansas has been deforested:



4,200 square kilometers cleared by 1978; 30,000 by 1988; and 53,300 by 1998. By 2003, an estimated 67,764 square kilometers of rainforest�an area larger than the state of West Virginia�had been cleared.



By the beginning of this decade, the frontier had reached the remote northwest corner of Rond�nia. Intact forest is deep green, while cleared areas are tan (bare ground) or light green (crops, pasture, or occasionally, second-growth forest). Over the span of eight years, roads and clearings pushed west-northwest from Buritis toward the Jaciparan� River. The deforested area along the road into Nova Mamor� expanded north-northeast all the way to the BR-346 highway.



The estimated change in forested area between 2000 and 2008 is shown in images (above) based on vegetation index data from MODIS.



All major tropical forests�including those in the Americas, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia are disappearing. Although tropical deforestation meets some human needs, it also has profound, sometimes devastating, consequences, including social conflict and human rights abuses, extinction of plants and animals, and climate change�challenges that affect the whole world.



References Lindsey, R. (2007). Tropical Deforestation. NASA�s Earth Observatory.