Deforestation refers to the complete destruction of forest cover, whether this destruction is due to land-clearing for cattle ranching, small holder agriculture, plantation agriculture, or parking lots. Why should we worry about tropical deforestation? Sensible people should be concerned for three basic reasons. First, an intact tropical forest offers a very wide range of highly valuable services. To illustrate, the forest serves important watershed and climate control functions, especially in regulation of rainfall. The forest absorbs albedo (reflectivity of the sun's rays) from the sun, and stores a sizable share of the world's carbon. Second, the tropical forest is the most important source of biodiversity on earth: the moist tropical forest contains at least 50 percent of all the earth's species. Third, undisturbed tropical forests furnish essential foods, clothing, and implements for indigenous forest people. Deforestation threatens all these services. For details, please see the attached file.