Fighting Against Climate Change a Forest at a Time
Climate change has recently entered the realm of conventional wisdom. We know it is occurring, we know that humans are a major cause, and we know that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic for large parts of the world for many generations unless something is done. What many of us struggle to understand, however, is what we can do to make a difference. Here is one idea: help protect the world’s rainforests.
Deforestation of the Earth’s tropical rainforests is a very significant source of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. In addition to wiping out the homes and of indigenous rainforest peoples and disrupting their traditional lifestyles, the loss of rainforests threatens to erase entirely the climate benefits of the greenhouse gas reductions anticipated under the Kyoto Protocol.
Rising temperatures and droughts increase the risks of forest fires, which in turn disrupt the rainfall cycle of the rainforest, leading to more drought, fires and so on. The ever-widening cycle of climate change and deforestation impacts broad regions. A major disruption of precipitation cycles in Brazil, for example, could have a catastrophic affect on the country’s agriculture industry while impacting the global climate.
Deforestation was responsible for approximately 60 percent of Brazil’s total greenhouse gas emissions this past year. One of the most effective ways to slow these emissions is by supporting indigenous peoples in their efforts to gain land title. Studies consistently show that indigenous peoples are most successful at protecting the rainforest. Rainforest Foundation-US is working throughout the Amazon to expand the scope of demarcated indigenous lands, while working with people like the Shuar of Ecuador and Achuar of Peru to protect their rainforest homelands from destructive and polluting natural resource extraction.
Source: New York Botanical Garden
Rainforest river in Victoria, Australia
What is a rainforest?
A rainforest is an ecosystem in which annual rainfall exceeds 100 inches, and in which neither rainfall amounts nor temperature vary much from month to month. Tropical rainforests surround the earth's equatorial zone and are warm, humid places, which provide shelter and sustenance for an enormous variety of animal species, they are also home to 50 million Indigenous peoples. Although tropical forests cover less than 7% of the earth's surface they are home to approximately 50% of all living things on earth.
How old is the rainforest?
Rainforests have been around for tens of millions of years. The
geographical extent of this ecosystem has expanded and diminished under
the effect of continental drift and glaciation.
How much rainforest is gone?
In many parts of the tropics, current forest cover is only a fraction of
what it was 50 years ago. For example, only 5% of Brazil's incomparable
Atlantic coastal forest remains. While the Amazonian rainforest is still
largely intact due to its great size, recent data have shown that the
scale and rates of deforestation there are actually greater than many
published estimates, not less.
Are rainforests the lungs of the earth?
No, but mature forests such as the Amazon and elsewhere
store huge amounts of carbon, found
in vegetation. Burning the vegetation releases carbon dioxide.
Will rainforests regenerate?
In some cases this is possible, but the new forest will be a much poorer
habitat, home to many fewer species of plants and animals. Rainforest
fragmentation leads invariably to biodiversity loss.
What do we use rainforests for?
Rainforests are crucial to all humanity. Their destruction creates
greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. In addition,
rainforests provide many other important benefits. For example,
approximately 121 useful drugs currently on the market are obtained from
plants, and over a third of these originated in tropical forests.
Similarly, much of the food we eat - coffee, bananas, lemons, oranges,
cacao, cashews, peanuts, pineapples, papayas, and many more! - comes
from tropical forests.
Forests regulate water and protect watersheds. Without the canopy breaking the force of heavy downpours, rain can dissolve pastures and cropland into mud slides. The canopy allows rainfall to slowly trickle down, rather than rush into rivers and flood the surroundings. In 1998, for example, Hurricane Mitch left 11,000 people dead and many more homeless in Central America. The destruction was caused primarily by deforestation.
What are the major threats to the rainforest?
Uncontrolled extraction, logging, road development and infrastructure
projects (such as roads, dams, etc.) also threaten the people that live
in and rely upon the rainforest for their survival.
Source: www.rainforestfoundation.org
Rainforest links:
The Rainforest Foundation Norway
Deforestation - normal scene in the Amazon.
Rainforest view near Baños, Ecuador.
Costa Rican rainforest