Every year 11 million hectares of tropical rain forest are lost through commercial and subsidence pressures, a rate of 1% per year. A general consensus is that 45% of the original tropical rain and monsoon forests have been destroyed.
Tracts of forest in the Caribbean and Central America are being cut down at a rate of 1 to 3.5 percent a year. US ecologist John Terborgh estimates that as many as half of all birds that winter south of the United States go to just five countries—Mexico, the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic—where most of the mature forests are now cleared to make way for farms and pastures.