SCOTTSDALE, AZ--(Marketwire - May 2, 2008) - In the Southwest United States alone, nearly two million acres of forest are now gone, destroyed by recent catastrophic wildfires. An estimated 1.2 million hectares of Brazilian Amazon rainforest have been destroyed by illegal soya bean farming. And throughout Honduras, Panama, Belize, and Nicaragua, slash-and-burn farming is the leading cause of rainforest destruction in that region. This ongoing destruction upsets many land and water-based ecosystems, which in turn will take many, many years to replace. Plus, the loss of millions of trees increases the negative effects of carbon dioxide (CO2). Trees act as a carbon sink by removing the carbon from carbon dioxide and storing it as cellulose in the trunk while releasing the oxygen back into the air. One healthy tree stores around 13 pounds of carbon each year, or some 2.6 tons per acre every year.
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