Deforestation in the Amazon was primarily the product of subsistence farmers who cut down trees to produce crops for their families and local consumption. Logging affects the environment in several ways. Since trucks and large equipment need to get into the forest in order to access trees and transport timber, loggers must clear large areas for roadways .Roads in Latin America and other parts of the world are increasingly the result of political pressure from corporate interests. Extracting these natural resources is frequently a destructive activity that damages the rainforest ecosystem and causes problems for people living nearby and downstream from mining operations, especially from toxic runoff into river systems. As a result of hydropower dams, large areas of forest have been flooded with water. It is clear that these dams are part of development, but I think that these projects have not given enough thought to social and environmental impacts. 2,000 agrarian settlement projects that have moved as many as 1.2 million settlers to the Amazon in an attempt to quantify their contribution to deforestation and forest degradation.

SOIL AND ITS EFFECTS, The loss of trees, which anchor the soil with their roots, causes widespread erosion throughout the tropics. LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY, Deforestation depletes biodiversity by destroying habitat, by separating contiguous areas of rainforest from each other, by interfering with plant reproduction. CONTRIBUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE, When forests are cut down, not only does carbon absorption cease, but also the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere as CO2 if the wood is burned or even if it is left to rot after the deforestation process.