Why preserving our remaining Rainforests so important:
| Tropical rainforests cover less than
2% of the Earth's surface, but are home to more than half of all
known life forms on the planet. That's incredible, but what's
more incredible is the fact that despite this overwhelming statistic,
these irreplaceable ecosystems are being destroyed at the rate
of 100 acres per minute; 52 million acres of tropical forest are
lost each year. The governments of the nations that contain rainforests
are doing very little to preserve them, with less than 4% of remaining
rainforests being protected (and we use the word protected very
loosely -- we've seen the "protection" measures first
hand: gunshot signs handing loosely from rotted wood poles on
the riverbanks). |
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On September 9, 1987, a satellite picture of the Amazon
River Basin showed a total of 7,603 fires burning in the rainforest,
and things have only degraded. In fact we've lost almost a billion
acres since that photograph was taken - an area that is roughly four
times the size of the state of Texas. Almost two thirds of the
world's rainforests have already been destroyed.
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It gets worse: old growth trees that
comprise the primary jungle canopy, which are being felled or
burned at the rate of 2000 per minute, are hundreds of years old
and serve as the foundation of rainforests. Unlike most ecosystems,
in rainforests the majority of life-providing nutrients are locked
up in the trees and vegetation. Without these trees, the whole
system breaks down and the aftermath is barren, useless land.
The soil quality in rainforests is actually very poor, and typically
will not sustain crops. If it does, it's usually not for more
than a year or two. When the crops fail on the second or third
year, the whole process starts over again and another section
of the Rainforest is destroyed. |
We are losing 50 species every day..
And we mean 50 entire species -- that's about 2 species
per hour or 18,000 per year, all due due to tropical rainforest deforestation.
If the current rate of acceleration continues, more than half of
the world's estimated 10 million species will be gone in a quarter
of a century -- some of us have socks that old! We can think
of no greater tragedy - undoing three-and-a-half billion years of
evolution in twenty-five short years.
For those unmoved by the loss of life and species,
preservation of rainforests can be easily justified in terms of human
need. Take a look:
- Along with the destruction of every rainforest
plant species goes a possible cure for disease - more than a quarter
of all modern medicines owe their existence to rainforest plants,
yet less than 1% of tropical forest species have been tested for
possible medical value (think about that)
- The Amazon Rainforest in Brazil produces more than
a fifth of the world's oxygen supply
- Seventy percent of the plants identified by the
National Cancer Institute as being useful in cancer treatment are
found only in the rainforest. Drugs used to treat leukemia, Hodgkin's
disease and other cancers come from rainforest plants, along with
treatments for countless heart ailments, hypertension, and arthritis
-- even birth control! This just scratches the surface; the list
goes on..
- The US National Cancer Institute has identified
3000 plants that are active against cancer cells, and 70% of these
plants are found only in the rainforest
- At least 80% of the world's diet originated in
the tropical rainforest
- Of the 3000 fruits found in tropical rainforests,
less that 200 are in use in the industrialized world. We've only
begun to tap the bounty
- There were an estimated ten million Indians living
in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are
less than 200,000. In the Amazon rainforest alone, more than 90
indigenous tribes have already been forever lost, and with with
them have gone thousands of years if knowledge of the medicinal
value of rainforest plant species. As their homelands continue to
be destroyed by deforestation, rainforest peoples are also disappearing
- Most medicine men and shamans that are still alive
in the rainforests are 70 years old or more. Each time a rainforest
medicine man dies, and their knowledge is not past down to next
generations, it is as if an entire medical library is lost - we
lose thousands of years of irreplaceable knowledge about plants
with medicinal properties
>Learn how you can help
-- you can make a difference!
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