People who live in rainforests know how to find everything they need. The forest gives them food, shelter, clothes and medicine. In return, they treat the forest with great respect. They take only what they need, without causing any damage.
This man is weaving a roof using palm leaves.
Rainforests throughout the world have been home to various tribes of people for thousands of years. They build their homes using rainforest plants and they hunt for meat, gather fruit and nuts and grow useful plants in their gardens. They use the rainforest in a sustainable way that does not destroy it.
Rainforest is cleared to make cattle farms.
Many people have moved into rainforests, but they use the forest in ways that destroy it. Huge areas of rainforest have been cut down to make way for farmland. But because the nutrients in the thin soil soon wear out, farmers move on to destroy new parts of the forest, leaving behind a bare, infertile piece of land.
This hillside was once covered in trees and packed with wildlife.
When a rainforest is nut down, plants, animals and rainforest people lose their homes. Many species may die out and become extinct. Without the cover of the trees, the thin soil dries up and is washed away by the rain. The land is left like a desert and it is very difficult for rainforest to ever grow there again.