Eight thousand years ago, large tracts of ancient forest covered almost half the earth's land area. Today, only one fifth of the original forests remain as large areas of ancient forest, the rest having been destroyed, degraded or fragmented by relentless human activity.

© Greenpeace/Napchan

Causes of Degradation. The primary causes of forest loss and degradation vary from region to region. They include agricultural expansion, mining , settlement, shifting agriculture, the establishment of plantations and infrastructural development. However, recent research by the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI) concludes that "commercial logging poses by far the greatest danger to frontier forests … affecting more than 70 percent of the world's threatened frontiers."

Logging industry. There now exists considerable evidence to show that industrial logging is another key factor in opening up previously unlogged forest to many secondary effects, such as large-scale hunting, illegal trade in bushmeat - including meat from apes - fuel-wood gathering and clearing for agriculture.

While logging is one of the most important causes of - and precursors to - forest loss and degradation, it is also apparent that the way in which a large part of the current logging industry operates is underlying the problem. Unplanned tree cutting and inefficient processing both lead to an enormous wastage of wood, while lack of transparency within the industry makes it very difficult to trace the exact source of wood supply. This makes it therefore impossible to determine how well the forest from which it came is managed, leaving the industry open to widespread irresponsible and illegal practices worldwide.

While Greenpeace acknowledges the role played by national industries and markets in ancient forest destruction, our initial work has prioritised the activities of TNCs (transnational corporations) which have been destroying the world's forests for more than half a century. Today, with the removal of restrictive trade barriers and the emergence of a truly global marketplace, TNCs have even greater freedom to exploit the world's natural resources on a global scale. Driven by consumer demand, the last decade in particular has seen a dramatic expansion in the number TNCs infringing the world's remaining unexploited forest, leaving the last forest frontiers under increasing threat of destruction.