As someone who is from the Pacific Northwest, the land of sprawling forests and lush evergreen for miles, I find myself taking it for granted all the time. In the mid 1800s, logging removed many old-growth forests in Washington state and surrounding states. Timber was made from logged trees, and red cedars & Douglas fir trees were first on the list for being cut down for building and construction.
Washington's 50-year forest practices habit conservation plan (FPHCP) was designed to meet four goals: To provide compliance with the Endangered Species Act; to restore and maintain habitats on non-Federal forestlands to support a harvestable supply of fish; to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act for water quality; and to keep the timber industry economically viable.
An estimated 18 million acres of forests are cut down each year, roughly the size of the entire country of Panama. To visualize them, imagine 48 football fields of trees being lost every minute. If this rate of deforestation goes on, rainforests around the world could disappear within the next hundred years.
Deforestation is the second largest human contribution to global warming with it adding up to seventeen percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Without rainforests, modern medicine will never be the same: they produce 25 percent of plants used to make modern medicine. California holds the top position in the country for worst deforestation rates, followed by Oregon and Colorado. Alaska alone experiences 6.22 million hectares lost in the past few years.