The world's remaining tropical forests are being destroyed so rapidly that, if current trends continue, by the end of this century only the most inaccessible relics will survive. This would be a major tragedy as it would mean, inter alia:

(i) Destruction of the way of life of the indigenous peoples who inhabit these areas, leading to their systematic pauperization and transformation into a ‘marginal’, largely unemployed and widely unemployable, proletariat having a miserable and precarious existence in the shanty towns surrounding already drastically overcrowded cities.