Rainforest Environment
The mightiest river in the world is the Amazon. It runs
from west to east, from the sunset to the sunrise, from the
Andes to the Atlantic...The gigantic equatorial river-basin
is filled with an immense forest, the largest in the world.
- Theodore Roosevelt
What Can We Do To Conserve Existing Rainforest?
We all play a part in the conservation of tropical
forests. Learn as much as you can about the problems
of declining tropical forests. Share your knowledge
with others and encourage them to become involved.
Citizen diplomacy plays an important role in
persuading governments to limit environmental
degradation. Various groups worldwide have joined
hands to influence global policies. Support them
by joining the groups that spark your interest.
Don't eat fast-food hamburgers or processed beef
products, if the stock came from the rainforests
of Central or South America.
Avoid purchasing hardwoods that come from the
rainforest such as mahogany or rosewood.
Lobby legislatures to restrain government agencies
and lending institutions that invest in harmful
development of the tropics.
Plant trees. It will take a great deal of planting
and time to grow and replace what we have already
lost, but every seedling helps.
Probably the most important tool for saving the
rainforest is helping developing countries achieve
sustainable growth. We don't need to control these
nations, but we do need to communicate to the
native peoples of the rainforest how important
their lands are.
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Learn About...
 Why
Are Tropical Rainforests Important?
Tropical rainforests are the oldest and certainly the
most complex ecosystems on our planet. They influence
wind, rainfall, humidity and temperature patterns, and
are a crucial link in the ecological chain of life—recycling
water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, and reducing soil
erosion, flooding, and air contamination on a global
scale.
Tropical rainforests play other important roles in
our daily lives. Estimated to house almost half of the
world’s plant, animal, and insect life, the forests
are the Earth’s primary gene pool from which foods,
medicine, and other products for the industrialized
world are derived including coffee, tea, sugar, pepper,
spices, bananas, rubber, and oils. Tropical rainforest
plants already provide one-quarter of today’s
pharmaceuticals and, according to The National Cancer
Institute, a full 70% of the plants useful in the treatment
of cancer are to be found only in our disappearing rainforest.
How
Much Rainforest Remains?
Tropical rainforest is disappearing faster than any
other natural community on Earth. If we continue at
our current rate of destruction, with population being
the dominant factor, 70% of our remaining rainforests
will by gone by the year 2050! Ancient forests, some
of which have existed intact for seventy million years,
since the days of the dinosaurs, will all but vanish.
How
Is The Rainforest Being Destroyed?
A few thousand years ago, rainforests covered 14% of
the earth’s land surface—5 billion acres.
We have already destroyed a great deal of that. According
to the United States National Academy of Sciences, more
than 50 million acres of rainforest, an area the size
of England, Scotland, and Wales, are destroyed or seriously
degraded each year. Every day about 90 acres of rainforest
land is deforested, creating infertile soil marked,
ironically, for farming; for the creation of short-lived
dams; for the mining of mineral resources; for cattle
ranching to provide a cheaper fast-food hamburger for
developed countries; for the importing of hardwood;
and, most importantly, for the use of wood as fuel for
cooking. The rainforest becomes a third-world commodity
destined for transformation into paper bags, cardboard
boxes, and hardwood floors. Whether for land or timber,
deforestation of the world’s tropical rainforest
has an appalling history of short-term benefits in exchange
for irreversible loss. |
Why Won't
The Rainforest Grow Back?
The complex and delicate relationships that have evolved over
millions of years do not allow for independent survival. If
the ecosystem of the world’s rainforest is destroyed,
the stunning variety of plant and animal life we see today
might never again regenerate. Without this complex system
thriving above the soil, without nourishment from the roots
and leaves of trees, the rainforest soil quickly becomes infertile.
Crops planted on newly cleared land fail within a few years.
Grasses planted for cattle refuse to seed and grow again.
Without shade from the trees the earth is left dry, surrounding
land flood from silt, and an eroded wasteland, emptied of
the greatest diversity of life on Earth, is all that remains.
 What
Is Happening To The Forest People?
Some tribes, well acquainted with the rainforest and its many
resources, are disappearing from the forest due to outside
influences new to the rainforest people. Foreign diseases
and viruses, to which the forest people may have little resistance,
can sweep through a tribe with devastating results. Tribal
forest land is lost to loggers, ranchers, miners, and pioneer
settlers who arrive in the forest with little understanding
of the traditional agricultural methods that have sustained
the tribes for centuries. Without their land, the forest people
are absorbed into the new, dominant culture. With the disintegration
of cultural identity, the tribe and all its working knowledge
of the rainforest are swiftly lost. The people and their culture
become extinct.
What
Are The Global Effects Of Deforestation?
The rainforest plays an integral support role for the planet.
We know that on a regional basis deforestation results in
soil loss, floods, drought, severe climatic changes, and the
loss of a rich and bountiful habitat. We know also that the
destruction of our tropical rainforest destroys the greatest
storehouse of genetic diversity on Earth, a diversity that
can provide new foods and medicines for the entire world.
On a broader basis, the burning of the forests has been linked
to increased carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, second
only to that produced by the burning of fossil fuels. This
well-documented increase in carbon dioxide levels is also
associated with garbage dumping, changes in global climatic
patterns, rising sea levels, and depletion of the protective
ozone layer due to overpopulation. Consequently, action is
needed now to protect what remains in our world’s rainforests.
It is an important step toward the preservation of our future.
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