The state of Rondônia in western Brazil has become one of the most deforested parts of the Amazon rainforest. Once home to 80,000 square miles (or 207,199 square kilometers) of forest, the past three decades have seen rapid clearing and degradation. By 2003, an estimated 26,000 square miles (or 67,340 square kilometers) of rainforest — an area that’s larger than the state of West Virginia — had been cleared.
