The trade in animals and animal parts plays a devastating role in rainforest destruction. While the loss of wildlife may not be considered “destruction,” the decimating of a forests biodiversity leads to the death of the forest as assuredly as does cutting down the trees.

Animals killed for their parts include tigers, jaguars, ocelots and all types of cats, elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans, bears, monkeys, turtles, snakes, butterflies, moths and beetles. Those traded live include macaws, parrots, parakeets, cockatoos, cockatiels, love birds, finches and other birds, turtles, exotic fishes, frogs, snakes and butterflies.

As well, zoos have been notorious for accepting wildlife that has been caught in the wild, including primates, elephants, big cats and others.

In some cases, so many birds have been taken from forests in Senegal that biologists speak off the ěsilent forestî.

For more on the illegal trade in wildlife, see What to Avoid.