Source: Living In Peru
A Wattled Jacana, one of the 1,000 species of birds in Peru's Manu Biosphere.All trees and plants are important to the environmental health of the planet, but rainforests, given the density and concentration of their flora, are particularly crucial. Among other things, trees and plants pull carbon dioxide from the air and emit oxygen as a by-product of their food-making process. About half the weight of a dry tree is stored carbon, which is released when the tree is burned or decomposes on its own. This is why the continued destruction of the world’s rainforests is so devastating—because we’re not just losing more of the planet’s “lungs” each year, we’re typically releasing their stored carbon in the process.
Why it’s important to protect the rainforests:
1. The Amazon rainforest produces 20 % of the world’s drinkable water, according to Amazon Watch.
2. 80 percent of the world’s known biodiversity is found in tropical rainforests, per the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
3. Since 1950, approximately 60 percent of the world’s total rainforest has been lost, 18 percent of which occurred in the Amazon.
4. Rough estimates put the total amount of stored carbon in the Amazon rainforest at 100 gigatons, about equal to 20 years of worldwide emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels. (1 gigaton = approx. 2 trillion pounds)
What you can do:
1. Visit the Amazon. Eco-tourism is a sustainable way to “monetize” the rainforest. (Read: it’s far more profitable to give a tour than cut down a tree.)
2. Eat less red meat. Clearing land for cattle production destroys more rainforest land than logging.
3. Educate yourself. Find out what companies do business at the expense of the rainforest and don’t consume their products.
4. Vote green. Governments can do far more than environmental NGOs to protect rainforests.