People

• Loss of land for indigenous people or those who have lived in the area for generations.
• Loss of the traditional way of life.
• Amerindians influenced by new technologies, eg guns and radios.
• Land reserved for indigenous people often lacks legal protection and faces intrusion and aggression from developers and loggers.
• Amerindians dying of 'Western' diseases, eg flu and measles because of a lack of immunity.
• Farming systems being altered as there is less land to 'shift' to different plots to practise shifting cultivation.
• People who make a living from the rainforest lose their income.

Environment

• Land clearance for farming, transportation and mining causes deforestation. Hardwood trees take many years to grow - they are difficult to replace.
• Clearing the rainforest threatens the survival of many rare plant, bird and animal species and could lead to their extinction as their habitat is destroyed.
• Fertile but fragile soils that make farming possible are quickly washed away when the trees are cleared.
• If soil is washed into rivers it can lead to flooding.
• Loss of vital ingredients for life-saving medicines, many of which still remain undiscovered.
• Increased global warming and climate change because there are fewer trees to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
• Higher world temperatures cause sea levels to rise, flooding low-lying places, eg the Maldives and the Netherlands.
• Rainforest areas turning to desert caused by a devastating break in both the water and nutrient cycles.