Rainforests are the
Earth's oldest living ecosystems.
These incredible
places cover only 6 %of the Earth's surface but yet they contain MORE THAN 1/2
of the world's plant and animal species!
Tropical forests
contain more species than any other ecosystem, as well as a higher proportion of
endemic (unique) species. As people clear large areas of tropical forests,
entire species are vanishing, many of them unknown.
This
image shows the rainforest canopy north of Manaus, Brazil.
(Image
courtesy of NASA LBA-ECO Project)
A Rainforest can be
described as a tall, dense jungle. The reason it is called a "rain"
forest is because of the high amount of rainfall it gets per year.A tropical
rain forest gets more than 60 inches (1.5 meters) of rain per year, although
some regularly get more than 200 inches (five meters).
There are two types
of rainforests, tropical and temperate. Tropical rainforests are found closer to
the equator and temperate rainforests are found farther north near coastal
areas. The majority of common houseplants come from the rainforest.
NASA
TERRA Satellite Global Vegetation Image
The largest tropical
rainforests exist in the Amazon Basin (the Amazon Rainforest), in Nicaragua (Los
Guatuzos, Bosawás and Indio-Maiz), the southern Yucatán Peninsula-El Peten-Belize
contiguous area of Central America (including the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve), in much of equatorial Africa from Cameroon to the Democratic Republic of Congo,
in much of southeastern Asia from Myanmar to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea,
eastern Queensland, Australia and in some parts of the United States. The
majority of tropical rainforest is found within a 20 degree band around the
equator.
Outside of
the tropics, temperate rainforests can be found in British Columbia,
southeastern Alaska, western Oregon and Washington, the northern coast of
California, Scotland and Norway, the western Caucasus (Ajaria region of
Georgia), parts of the western Balkans, Japan, southern Chile, New Zealand,
Tasmania, and parts of eastern Australia.
MODIS
Land Group/Vegetation Indices, Alfredo Huete, Principal Investigator, and Kamel
Didan, University of Arizona. Satellite: Terra Sensor: MODIS
Layers Of A
Rainforest
EMERGENT LAYER
The tallest trees are the
emergents, towering as much as 200 feet above the forest floor with trunks that
measure up to 16 feet around. Most of these trees are broad-leaved, hardwood
evergreens. Sunlight is plentiful up here. Animals found are birds, butterflies
and small monkeys live with bats, snakes and bugs.
CANOPY LAYER
This is the primary
layer of the forest and forms a roof over the two remaining layers. Most canopy
trees have smooth, oval leaves that come to a point. It's a maze of leaves and
branches. Many animals live in this area since food is abundant. The canopy is
the home to birds, monkeys, frogs, and sloths, as well as lizards, snakes and
many insects.
UNDERSTORY LAYER
Little sunshine reaches this area
so the plants have to grow larger leaves to reach the sunlight. The plants in
this area seldom grow to 12 feet. This layer is the home to birds, butterflies,
frogs and snakes
SHRUB LAYER
This is the layer that grows
between the smaller trees of the understory and the forest floor. This layer is
made up of ferns and small shrubs.
FOREST FLOOR
The forest floor is very dark.
This is due to the trees above stopping the sunlight from entering the forest.
It is estimated that only 2% of the sunlight actually reaches the floor. The
soil on the floor is covered in a layer of leaves, twigs and dead plants, which
rot down quickly to provide nutrients for the plants. The leaf litter is alive
with invertebrates and microorganisms, which quickly rot down this surface
layer. Mosses and ferns grow on the forest floor where it is warm, damp and
shady. The soil is very sandy with only a thin layer of rotting vegetation.
Without the trees, the soil quickly loses its ability to support plants and
turns to desert-like conditions. The forest floor is home to some of the larger
animals of the forest such as tigers and elephants in Asia, gorillas and
leopards in Africa and tapirs and jaguars in South America.
Amazon Rainforest
The
Amazon Rainforest is like a giant "heat pump" that sends energy
and moisture from
the tropics into the colder high latitudes -it produces a climate in which we
can live.
Rainforest
Destruction
All
tropical forest sub-regions (coded by color) are represented in a list of the
top 20 countries that cleared the most forest between 1990 and 2005. Brazil, the
leader, cleared over 42 million hectares, an area the size of California. (Graphic
by Robert Simmon, based on data provided by individual countries to the U.N.
Foreign Agricultural Organization for the Global Forest Resources Assessment
Report 2005.)
The
exact rate at which rainforests are presently being destroyed is not known .U.N.
specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every
minute. Estimates of deforestation of tropical forest for the 1990s range
from about 55,630 to 150,000 square kilometers each year. Most of the
rainforest destruction has occurred in the last 50 years, with forests being
destroyed at an alarming rate.
The
reasons for forest destruction vary greatly from continent to continent and from
country to country. The forests are being destroyed at an accelerating pace
tracking the rapid pace of human population growth. There are many causes,
ranging from slow forest degradation to sudden and catastrophic clearcutting,
slash-and-burn, urban development, acid rain, and wildfires. Deforestation can
be the result of the deliberate removal of forest cover for agriculture or urban
development, or it can be a consequence of grazing animals, primarily for
agriculture
The balance of nature is being destroyed. Every second of the day land the size of
2 football fields is
lost forever in The Rain Forests of the
World.
Unless
significant measures are taken on a world-wide basis to preserve them, by 2030
there will only be ten percent remaining with another ten percent in a degraded
condition. 80 percent will have been lost and with them the irreversible loss of
hundreds of thousands of species.
This SeaWiFS overpass of Bolivia shows
obvious human habitation in the forms of deforestation and urbanization.Provided
by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
Satellite: OrbView-2 Sensor: SeaWiFS
Rainforests are the
most productive and most complex ecosystems on Earth.Rainforests
are a key element of global weather systems. Destroying them alters the
Hydrological Cycle-causing drought, flooding and soil erosion in areas where
events were previously rare.
The cutting and destruction of the Rainforests also changes the
albedo or reflectivity of the Earth's Surface , which in turn alters wind and
ocean current patterns, and changes rain fall distribution.
If we do not take massive action now it will be too late to stop the domino
effect upon our environment.
This image from Landsat7, acquired on August 1,
2000, shows the new agricultural settlements east of Santa Cruz de la Sierra,
Bolivia in an area of tropical dry forest. Since the mid-1980s, this region has
been rapidly deforested as a result of the resettlement of people from the
Altiplano (the Andean high plains) and a large agricultural development effort,
called the Tierras Baja project. The pie or radial patterned fields (left) are
part of the San Javier resettlement scheme. At the center of each unit is a
small community including a church, bar/cafe, school, and soccer field-the
essentials of life in rural Bolivia. The rectilinear, light-colored areas
(right) are fields of soybeans cultivated for export that are mostly funded by
foreign loans. The dark strips running through these fields are wind breaks.
These are advantageous because the soils in this area are fine and prone to wind
erosion.
-Landsat
image courtesy USGS EROS Data Center and Landsat7 science team. Photographs
courtesy Compton Tucker, NASA GSFC. Satellite: Landsat 7 Sensor: ETM+
The destruction of the World's
Rainforests
displaces and
destroys the cultures of indigenous people who inhabit them. Ways of life that
have existed for eons are totally destroyed, disrupted and up routed. The cultures we are
losing are irreplaceable. In
1500 almost 9 million indigenous people inhabited the Brazilian Rainforest.
Now less than 200,000 remain.
One-fifth
of the rainforest is permanently deforested
Amazon
Rainforest SOS for Live Earth
Logging
in the Amazon
Rainforest
Facts
In Brazil- 5.4+
Million Acres per year
80% of the ancient
forests have been destroyed
only 20% of the ancient
forests remain intact
Rainforests
are home to more species of plants and animals than the rest of the
world put together.
An
astounding number of fruits (bananas, citrus), vegetables (peppers,
okra), nuts (cashews, peanuts), drinks (coffee, tea, cola), oils
(palm, coconut), flavorings (cocoa, vanilla, sugar, spices), and other
foods (beans, grains, fish) come from rainforests.
Tropical
forest fibers are found in rugs, mattresses, ropes and strings,
fabrics, industrial processes, and more.
Tropical
forest oils, gums and resins are found in insecticides, rubber
products, fuel, paint, varnish and wood finishing products, cosmetics,
soaps, shampoos, perfumes, disinfectants, and detergents.
Madagascar
is 2% of Africa's landmass but has 10,000 species of plants -- 80% are
endemic (found no where else in the world).
The
Amazon River is the world's largest river system. Its annual outflow
accounts for one-fifth of all the fresh water that drains into the
world's oceans.
780
tree species have been found in a 10 hectare plot of Malaysian
rainforest -- more than the total number of tree species native to the
US and Canada.
In
1800, there were 2.9 billion hectares of tropical forest worldwide.
There are 1.5 billion hectares of tropical forest remaining.
Between
1960-1990, 445 million hectares of tropical forest were cleared.
Asia
lost almost a third of its tropical forest cover between 1960-1980 --
the world's highest rate of forest clearance.
Almost
90% of West Africa's rainforest has been destroyed.
We
lose 50 species every day -- 2 species per hour -- due to tropical
deforestation.
Tropical
rainforests act as a global air conditioner -- by storing and
absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, storing the carbon, and
releasing fresh, clean oxygen.
Tropical
forests yield some of the world's most beautiful and valuable woods,
such as teak, mahogany, rosewood, balsa, and sandalwood. These woods
surround us at home, in shops, and in offices.
About
50% of all mammals and 25% of all bird species in peninsular Malaysia
will become extinct by the year 2020 if the rainforest destruction
continues.
Over
50% of the Earth's species live in tropical forests.
Over
2000 tropical forest plants have been identified as having anti-cancer
properties. However, scientists have only tested 1 in 10 tropical
forest plants for these properties and only intensively screened 1 in
100.
90%
of all primates are found in tropical forests.
Madagascar
is home to all of the world's lemurs -- all are endangered.
Almost
90% of Madagascar's forests have been destroyed.
In
Southeast Asia, traditional healers use 6,500 different tropical
plants.
Before
1500, there were approximately 6 million native people living in
Brazilian Amazonia. By 2000 there were less than 250,000.
75%
of Australia's tropical rainforest has been cleared since the late
1700s.
Over
90 different Amazonian tribes are thought to have disappeared in the
20th century.
It
takes 60 years for a tropical rainforest tree to grow big enough to be
used for timber.
Tropical
rainforests cover 6% of the earth's surface and contain over 50% of
the earth's species.
Over
2000 rainforest plants have been shown to have anti-cancer properties.
Tropical
rainforest temperatures are high all year around at between 20 - 30 C
Approximately
80% of all insect species live in tropical rainforests
1
in 5 of all the birds on Earth live in Amazonia
Only
4% of the world's tropical rainforests are protected.
More
than 9000 species of orchids grow on tropical trees.
The
largest flower on Earth comes from a tropical forest - the Rafflesia
grows up to 1 metre across.
Costa
Rica was the first Central American nation to cultivate coffee.
Costa
Rica was the first Central American nation to cultivate bananas for
export.
The
developing countries, which account for most of the tropical
rainforests, have almost 75% of the world's people but only about 15%
of the world's goods.
Unlike
our forests most of the nutrients of a rainforest are stored in its
vegetation rather than in its soil.
The
common way to clear land for agriculture or ranching is by felling and
burning the trees
Some
25% of all medicines used by Americans originated in a tropical
rainforest.
Many
species of plants and animals are disappearing from the rainforests
before they can be catalogued and studied.
In
most tropical countries only one tree is replanted for every ten cut.
About
2,000 trees per minute are cut down in the rainforests.
Half
the rainfall in Amazonia returns to the atmosphere through the process
of transpiration.
In
the tropics, wood is the main source of energy for cooking for
millions of poor, rural people.
Almost
65% of Central America has been cleared to create pastureland for
grazing cattle.
Rainforest
land cleared for pasture or farming degrades quickly and is usually
abandoned.
The
Ganges Plain, in India, is the most densely populated region in the
world. It has suffered severe flooding because of deforestation.
Most
of the forests in India and Nepal have been cleared for agriculture.
Use
of powerful pesticides on banana plantations in Costa Rica has killed
huge numbers of fish in nearby rivers and streams.
In
Papua New Guinea, butterfly farms are a successful operation that
provides income and supports forest preservation.
In
the 20th century, 90 tribes of native peoples have been wiped out in
Brazil alone.
Some
of the medical problems solved with rainforest plants include: a.
malaria (the bark of the cinchona tree produces quinine) b. a muscle
relaxant used during surgery (curare, a vine extract used by
indigenous peoples to poison arrows and darts) c. strokes, seizure,
depression and Alzheimer's disease (secretions of an Amazonian frog
called Phyllomedusa bicolor)
The
rainforest is home to 155,000 out of 225,000 plant species known in
the world
Just
100 hectares of Amazon rainforest can contain up to 1500 different
plant species
For
every tropical plant species that becomes extinct it is thought that
20 insects are certain not to survive.
Only
3% of all tropical tree species used for timber and paper products are
grown in plantations
Global
Warming & the Rainforest: Raintrust Foundation Intro
Data
compiled from The British Antarctic Study, NASA, Environment Canada,
UNEP, EPA and
other sources as stated and credited Researched by Charles
Welch-Updated dailyThis
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