New insights into the tropical biodiversity crisis

For conservation biologists, the contemporary loss of tropical biodiversity is among the greatest of all concerns. Regarded as the biologically richest ecosystems on the planet, old-growth tropical forests are disappearing at an alarming pace—roughly 30–60 football fields per minute (approximately 8–15 million ha/year) in recent decades (Achard et al. 2002; FAO 2007; Grainger 2008). During the past half-century, numerous tropical nations, including many in West Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central America, and Oceania, among others, have suffered striking declines in forest cover (FAO 2007). Even the world's greatest tropical forests, such as the Amazon and Congo Basin, are being rapidly altered (Laurance et al. 2001; Soares-Filho et al. 2006; Laporte et al. 2007)