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Tropical rainforests are rich with biodiversity but are being cut down for timber and paper. Trees that have taken 200 years to grow are now cut down by a chainsaw in five minutes, and the felled trunks are now handled with terrifying ease by modern machinery. Even when only the largest trees are taken, the damage still leaves the forest beyond recovery. As the international price of timber increases so more and more of the tropical forest is destroyed. In south-east Asia, in 1984, it had been reduced to a third of its original size. In the world at large, an area the size of Switzerland is being destroyed every year. But a tree called the Albizia, a species from Indonesia, may be part of the solution. It can be planted immediately after the felling of the jungle and grows to ten metres tall in just one year. In eight years it will be ready for logging. So, if this timber was produced on a very large scale, it might be possible to stop the destruction of the wild trees. In that case, some of the rainforest might just survive. This clip was aired in 1984.