The worldwide decline of forest habitat, and related loss of biodiversity, is one of the most urgent environmental issues of our time. Human activities – such as clearing forests for agriculture and settlement, unsound forest management, and unsustainable hunting – are becoming even more threatening as human populations increase and place more and more demands on forest ecosystems. Habitat decline
contributes more than any other factor to the current extinction rate, which exceeds the “background” natural rate by 100-1,000 times (Baillie et al. 2004). Beyond
perpetuating high extinction rates, the loss and fragmentation of forested ecosystems impairs critical ecosystem services, such as purifying the air and water, stabilizing the
soil, providing renewable timber and non-timber forest products, and providing homes for human communities.