Biologists debate the scale of extinction in the world’s tropical forests

A RARE piece of good news from the world of conservation: the global extinction crisis may have been overstated. The world is unlikely to lose 100 species a day, or half of all species in the lifetime of people now alive, as some have claimed. The bad news, though, is that the lucky survivors are tiny tropical insects that few people care about. The species that are being lost rapidly are the large vertebrates that conservationists were worried about in the first place.

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After three years of improvements, deforestation in the Amazon is increasing again, according to the Brazilian government.

Satellite images indicate that nearly twelve thousand square kilometres of land has been cleared within a year, an area the size of Lebanon.

See the video commented by Vanessa Heaney on BBC website.