Source: Times and Transcript
Tropical rainforests in particular are known as the "lungs of the planet" responsible for producing almost a quarter of the earth's oxygen.
Home to plants, insects, and animals with a wide biodiversity, rainforests house over 10 million species which make up complex ecosystems including flora of which up to 70 per cent house anti-cancer properties. In the Amazon rainforest alone, 90 per cent of plants used by the indigenous tribes have not yet been studied by scientists for healing properties.
Unfortunately, the world's forested regions are being decimated at an alarming rate. Logging, urban sprawl, and industrialization are taking a toll on forested regions all around the world.
In the Amazon rainforest, only 54 per cent of total rainforest is left from its original expanse, with 2,700 million acres burned each year. This not only threatens the way of life of the indigenous people, but has dire implications for the entire planet. Local tribes like the Kayapo have fought back against policies by the Brazilian government and the World Bank, but in Indonesia, the loss of forested regions continues unchecked, threatening the delicate balance of nature and displacing peoples and the only home of the great ape known as the orangutan.
Canada is not immune to such problems. No stranger to the spectre of deforestation by huge corporations, Canada has suffered reduced forested regions in places of pristine woodlands like Clayoquot Sound in British Columbia. In 1984, the first conflict to do with logging occurred on islands in the sound with uprisings by "tree huggers" and native activists which eventually resulted in a government decision on environmental protection in 1993.
In New Brunswick, 85 per cent to 90 per cent of the province is still forested in virgin woodland, which helps to retain an unspoiled beauty. Essential to the balance of temperatures in our communities, forested regions help to control air quality and have a spin-off effect on the health of streams, rivers, wetlands, and ultimately oceans and their ecosystems.
Earth Day has traditionally helped to focus on the health of our environment and initiatives to protect the balance of nature in our environment. Founded in 1970 in the United States by Gaylord Nelson, Governor or Wisconsin, and Dennis Hayes, a student at Harvard University, the first Earth Day set into motion an event that would be regarded as the start of the Environmental Movement.
Concerned with the stewardship of the earth to ensure that its valuable resources continue to sustain all living creatures, Earth Day has grown from its grassroots beginnings of teach-ins and group sessions to become a worldwide effort to rescue our planet which is now on the brink of environmental disaster.
In fact, the Earth Day Movement seems even more relevant today than at any other time in earth's history, especially in the face of compelling new evidence of the negative effects mankind has wrought on the environment and the repercussions of these affects on the well-being of the planet for the future.
Earth Day is celebrated on April 22, each year, and it is now acknowledged around the world by over 180 countries. Over 1 billion people, 6 million of them in Canada, take part in events and special projects which address pressing environmental concerns whether they be close to home or across the globe.
A powerful force for change in attitudes and actions, Earth Day has wrought real policy change since its inception, ranging from the U.S. Congress passing of the Clean Air and Water Acts and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Act to research and monitor environmental issues and to enforce laws in the United States, to U.N. mandated guidelines as outlined in the United Nations Summit in Brazil in 1992, and addressed anew at the new Copenhagen Summit which took place in December of 2009.
In 1990, Earth Day became an international event with Canada joining 141 participating countries with 200 million people.
The volume of Earth Day events have become week-long and even month-long celebrations now taking part during the entire month of April, encompassing year-round projects and initiatives aimed at righting environmental wrongs.
Earth Day 2011 marks the culmination of four decades of environmental awareness on a global level as nations all across the world come together to affect real change in the attitudes of every man, woman, and child when it comes to preserving our planet.