Rain forests in the Amazon are being destroyed, but people are trying to stop it.
For a long time, Yanomami people lived by themselves.  Settlers came in the 1960s.  Then gold was found in Yanomami territories which brought miners.  When the miners came, they brought diseases like malaria, influeza, and the whooping cough.  About 10,000 square miles of rainforest was cut down in 2004.  After many years, about twenty percent of rainforest has been cut down.  Some reason for cutting it down are cattle ranching, substence cultivation, logging, fires, mining, roads, and commercial agriculture.  W.F.F., A.R.P.A., and other associations are  trying to help preservie the rainforests.  Only twelve percent of the rainforest iis protected which is about the size of California.  Also, there are only eighty reserves.  Cutting down the rainforests is hurting our Earth.  About half of the Earth�s plants and animals are located there.  It also takes in a lot of carbon dioxide.  Buring it will cause global warming.  Finally, cutting it down will cause extinction.