Mamiraua and the Rain Forest Deforestation

A bullock team shoulders teak logs, weighing as much as 4 tons (3,629 kilograms) each, onto a cart in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). Many governments have banned Burmese teak, but the country still supplies an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the world's teak. Slash-and-burn harvesting threatens to wipe out forests there.



A clearing in Gunung Palung National Park in Indonesian Borneo reveals an illegal logging operation, where loggers fell and mill trees into lumber on site. Deforestation in this area threatens the endangered orangutan population.


Token trees dot Brazil's Pantanal wetland where dense forest used to stand. Considered the world's largest wetland, the Pantanal is an ecological paradise that covers 54,000 square miles (140,000 square kilometers) in Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay, and supports thousands of animal species.