Chapter 1 Why do we need the rain forests Picture yourself deep in a forest Looking up you can just see the sunlight glinting through the dense canopy of leaves high above your head Your clothes are soaked in sweat and the heat is almost stifling All around you can hear the buzz of insects the hoots of monkeys and the calls of colorful birds darting about high in the canopy An occasional grunt or growl from ground level gives you some cause for concern Then suddenly lightning flashes overhead You jump at the sound of thunder and Lush green and seemingly endless in reality the planet’s dense tropical rain forests are under considerable threat Rain forests may once have covered up to 12 percent of the world’s land surface Now they cover only about half that area 6
Why do we need the rain forests almost immediately are drenched by a heavy downpour of rain You are in a rain forest one of the most fascinating and diverse habitats anywhere on the planet Rain forests today Tropical rain forests are dense evergreen forests that receive over 8 2 feet 2 5 meters of rain each year They are found across the world between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn 23 5 degrees north and south of the equator They occur in Asia Africa South America northern Australia and on many tropical islands They cover about 6 percent of the planet’s land surface about 5 9 million square miles 15 million square kilometers The largest rain forest the Amazon in South America spans eight different countries and covers an area of almost 2 million square miles 5 2 million square kilometers Rain forest climate It rains a lot in a rain forest mostly in the afternoons Although rainforests experience annual rainfall of at least 98 4 inches 2 5 meters some receive up to 400 inches 10 meters of rain each year that’s about 10 times the annual average for New York City Temperatures rarely fall below 68 F 20 C and can exceed 86 F 30 C giving annual average temperatures of about 77 F 25 C Humidity in the rain forest can reach up to 100 percent saturation point And since the sun is almost directly overhead throughout the year there are no distinct seasons Rain forest inhabitants The plants of the rain forest are well adapted to their environment Trees grow up to 230 feet 60 meters tall the tallest recorded grew to 272 feet 83 meters Their leaves are concentrated high up in the canopy Many have huge buttress roots to help anchor them to the ground and soak up nutrients from the soil Below them are other plants adapted to living in the shrub and floor layers A huge range of animals such as jaguars anacondas piranhas orangutans and parrots can be found in the world’s rain forests Living among them are tribes of native people such as the Kayapo and Yanomami who have lived in harmony with their forest environment for thousands of years Ex p e r t Vi ew Naturalist Charles Darwin recorded these impressions of the forests outside of Rio de Janeiro The forest abounded with beautiful objects It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder astonishment and devotion which fill and elevate the mind Charles Darwin The Voyage of the Beagle 1832 7
Why Are the Rain Forests Being Destroyed A fragile paradise Rain forests hold incredibly rich stores of animal and plant life A third of the world’s plant life grows in the rain forests and each 1 2 square yards one square meter can support up to 177 pounds 80 kilograms of living material biomass It is known that more than half of the world’s animal and plant species live in the rain forests and a single acre can contain 80 different tree species and more than 16,200 species of insect In just 25 acres 10 hectares of Malaysian rain forest 780 different species of tree were discovered That is more than the total number of tree species that are native to all of the US and Canada This selection of butterflies comes from one small area of rain forest in the Central African Republic Each species lives on its own specific tree and emerges once a year to coincide with a key event in the tree’s life cycle such as flowering Amazingly given the vast number of species rain forests support their soils are shallow and acidic In fact their soils are among the poorest in the world and heavy rainfall washes away any nutrients that are not taken up by the trees Rain forests are able to thrive because they feed on themselves dead plant and animal matter decays quickly on the forest floor and the shallow-rooted trees quickly absorb the nutrients released Treading lightly People have lived in harmony with the rain forest for thousands of years with a way of life that went almost unchanged for centuries In the Amazon tribes such as the Yanomami Kayapo and Yekuana have learned to conserve the resources of their forest home They know never to take too much from the forest They hunt for meat grow crops and gather fruits and nuts They use many of the plants and animals to provide medicines for their people and poisons for hunting 8
Unfortunately the tribes encounters with civilization have often led to disaster for them It is estimated that the Amazon rain forest supported about 6 million tribal people before 1500 CE By the year 2000 there were fewer than 250,000 left More than 90 tribes are thought to have disappeared just from the Amazon during the twentieth century alone Many were wiped out when Western settlers brought diseases they had never encountered before such as measles which alone killed thousands of tribespeople Why do we need the rain forests Ex p e r t Vi ew Anthropologist Flora Lu Holt lived with the Huaorani in the Amazonian rain forest for more than 10 years I think that the Huaorani are capable of making good decisions I think that they can adopt certain things from Western culture or choose not to What’s important is that they have that choice Flora Lu Holt Now some of the tribes such as the Yanomami have protected homelands in government-approved reservations and they are more able to maintain their traditions The way of life of the forest peoples is as fragile as the forests they live in They could teach us much but most prefer to be left alone to continue living as they always have in harmony with their surroundings The Waura people from the Brazilian Amazon were almost wiped out by disease in the 1950s after they came into contact with the industrialized world They have now been vaccinated against diseases such as tetanus influenza and measles and as a result the tribe now numbers around 400 individuals again 9
