In myriad ways rainforests are vital to our existance, but they are increasingly imperiled. Thoughtlessness, greed and widespread hunger born of burgeoning human populations are depleting the forests at an unprecedented rate. Recent deforestations have sparked more plant and animal extinctions that have occured at any other time since the dinosaurs. Every year, an area roughly the size of Illinois is slashed and burned, logged, or otherwise destroyed and at least an equal amount is disturbed.
“Equatorial forests, once unbroken belts of green, are rapidly being clear-cut, strip mined,
drowned,....bulldozed, and burned- all in the name of progress.”
Today’s forests are disappearing as never before, largely due to exploding human populations
and to contemporary attitudes toward nature and profits.
While most farmers fell the forest for planting, others clear it for grazing. In the Central and
South American rain forests, cattle ranching is another major cause of desforestation. The beef
from these cattle usually ends up in North America, where fast-food chains have a huge appetite
for cheap hamburger meat. Converting rain forest into hamburgers (when the pasture can rarely
support cattle for more than five years anyway) may be profitable for a few, but it must rank as
one of the most wasteful ways of producing food that man has ever devised.
Clearing the rainforest devastates animals because they are stripped of their home (or
territory) thus and the whole life cycles of the animals. Once an animal like a bird is deprived of
it’s home, it may never come back.
Awareness has grown in recent years of the threats to the world’s rain forests- and the
importance of trying to preserve as much forest as possible. Proposals have been floated and
efforts launched in a number of countries by conservationists, governments, and concerned
citizens. It is difficult to be optimistic, however, about preservation, considering that roughly
50 000 square miles of raiin foest are destroyed annually.
The future conservation of rain forests may depend indirectly on detailed knowledge of forest
plants, animals and microorganisms and on their interrelationships.
Iguanas are being bred and raised to help save the rainforests. They are called the “chicken of the
trees”. If farmers start planting tree for iguanas, it would eventually provide trees for wood for
human use. And of course it would help save the iguana, which is endangered. Finally, iguanas
could provide a sustainable source of food for people.
What rainforest countries are doing in efforts is a concept called “debt-for-nature”. Many
countries with tropical rain forests have huge foreign debts. If all parties agree, a portion of this
debt can be redeemed at a discount and applied to local conservation efforts. So far Costa Rica
has benefitted from this, and the latter is one of the world’s leading nations in efforts to preserve
rain forests.
How we can do our part:
- If you live areas where rainforests exist, then instead of clear these areas for agriculture or
grazing, write to the local government for other alternatives.
-Refrain from eating beef from fast-food restaurants. The beef is supplied from cattle who are
grazed on cleared rainforest terrain.
.
-support your favorite rainforest or endangered species charity.
-Practice the four R’s and don’t litter. Keeping the area locally clean, contributes all the more to a
clean earth. The focal point here is protecting the environment.
-Do not support the spread of the rape of the rainforest! Don’t buy products which contribute to
the destruction of the rainforest. IE: wood products, or animal pelts or the like.
-When you take from nature, also give back even more so in fact. Plant two trees for the loss of
one.
-Most importantly, INFORM YOURSELF! The more we know, the more we can do our part and
recognize the importance of the things we take for granted like our earth and environment.
Rain Forest Action Network HomepageRain forest links Friends of the Earth Environmental Defense Fund WorldWide Gaia Forest Archives National Geographic Society The Ark
The Emerald Realm- Earth's precious rain forests by the National Geographic society.
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia
Awake! magazine by the Watchtower and Tract Society
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