Extinction

Population is continually growing in the world. Some had land until increases in population forced them off it and they became landless peasants that are forced to look for land in the untouched forests for building shelters and cultivate land. What the peasants do in the forests is the most devastating. In attempts to settle farmland, the poor become "shifted cultivators" and resort to using slash and burn methods of tree removal. Slashing and burning involves what its name implies, trees are cut down and the remains are burned. The soil that is cleared in slash and burn is left infertile, the nutrients in the soil are quickly absorbed by surrounding organisms. The farmers must move on sometimes to other areas and repeat this process and worthy land and trees become scarce. So there cannot be a dense forest cover where there is high population density, and vice versa.( kim kieu)