Amazon rain forest continues to fall; 200,000 square miles gone since 1978

Forest loss may worsen as Brazil seeks to expand agricultural production and fires threaten stressed ecosystem

In 2004 at least 8,920 square miles (23,037 sq km) of rainforest were cleared in the Brazilian Amazon. That's almost 25 square miles (63 sq. kilometers) of forest lost per day and over 203,000 square miles (527,000 square kilometers) since 1978. Worse, studies from NASA suggest that these estimates of Amazon deforestation may capture less than half of the area degraded each year by logging and accidental fire. Why is the Amazon still disappearing at these high rates?