Rain forests only take up 6% of the world's surface, yet they contain more than half of the world's plant and animal species. A rainforest can be described as a tall, dense jungle. the word "rain" came from the high amounts of rainfall received each year.
The rainforest has taken several million years to grow into the amazingly complex system it is today. Everything in the rainforest has become so dependant on each other, survival has become so close knit, if even the slightest change is made to the rainforest many could suffer.
Forests are the largest storehouse of carbon, after coal and oil, just some of the many things that fuel our economy, literally. All the world's rain forests are disappearing at a rate of 6000 acres every hour, 50 million acres a year. As a result, the plants and animals living in the forests are destroyed, some species are at risk of becoming extinct. In addition, the large scale harvesting of lumber, clear cutting, from the rain forests continue to disrupt the balance of the earth's ecosystem.
When forests are destroyed by activities such as logging and land conservation for agriculture, they release large quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Video on deforestation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzK2XITThZM
Reducing deforestation and forest degradation must be part of the solution to the global climate change problem.
There are organizations where human intervention is being used positively to affect the rain forests.
To protect the Amazon, WWF is:
- Developing national programmes for reducing emissions from deforestation
- Promoting the responsible use of natural resources
- Ensuring environmental and social standards for infrastructure development
- Consolidating and expanding protected areas
The mission of the Rainforest Foundation is to support indigenous and traditional people of the world's rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights by assisting them in:
- Securing and controlling the natural resources necessary for their long term well being and managing these resources in ways which do not harm their environment, violate their culture or compromise their future; and
- Developing the means to protect their individual and collective rights and to obtain, shape and control basic services from the state.
The Rainforest Foundation has engaged in a project to train the Yanomami (natives) leaders of brazil, the critical skills needed to protect their lands and rights in the future.
The rain forest conservation's main goals are to protect some areas completely (and effectively), increase the size of protected forest areas, protect forest edges against damage, restoration of damaged and disturbed habitats.
These organizations are taking small steps to preserve the rain forests. It will be those little step by step actions that will make a big difference in saving the rain forests.
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/www/preserve.html
http://www.rainforestfoundation.org/
http://www.rainforestconservation.org/rainforest-primer/6-conservation-of-tropical-rainforests/a-means-of-conserving-tropical-rainforests/5-protection-of-forest-land
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/forest_climate/
http://scienceray.com/biology/ecology/preserving-our-rainforest/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzK2XITThZM
-via marcGonzales-
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