French President Calls for Stronger Forest Preservation Effort

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for rich nations to contribute more to fighting deforestation, particularly in the Congo and Amazon River basins in Africa and Latin America.

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Deforestation Pushing Amazon to Its Ecological Limits

When you don’t know the effects of damaging a highly complex, invaluably important ecological system, make sure not to damage it.

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Everything's even bigger in Brazilian Amazon

In fact, the Brazilian Amazon alone is more than seven times the size of Texas. It accounts for about half of Brazil’s national territory, but is sparsely populated compared with areas to the south.

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Big cities and global farming now driving deforestation, study finds

In recent years, tropical countries have been supplying growing amounts of palm oil, soybeans, sugar, meat and other processed products to distant markets abroad. Not all the products are used for food; palm oil and sugar in particular are also being converted into biofuels.

Photo courtesy of Damon Winter/NY Times