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Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth’s land surface but a combination of factors have reduced the rainforests surface area to a mere 6%. Over half of the world’s plant and animal species inhabit tropical rainforests, thousands of which are endemic -meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. One and a half acres of rainforest are destroyed every second for logging, agriculture and construction purposes. The sheer level of deforestation occurring in the world today is contributing to a loss of 137 plant and animal species every single day or 50,000 species per year. Hundreds of thousands of species are becoming increasingly vulnerable to human interference and their habitats to become increasingly fragmented. If the current rate of deforestation continues, the world’s rainforests could be wiped out within 40 to 50 years.

The Importance of Rainforests

Rainforests are considered the most wealthy and complex land-based ecosystem on earth, stretching across equatorial regions from Brazil to Papua New Guinea. An estimated 30 million plant, animal and insect species live in tropical rainforests with around 1000 tree species and 300 animal species living in each hectare of forestry.

Rainforest plants are considered vital for helping fight human illness and diseases including cancer, yet only 1% of plant species have been tested by medical researchers. Currently 25% of the world’s medicines are derived from rainforest ingredients, which highlights the incredible importance of tropical forests for human health. The rainforest ecosystem is also important for regulating the world’s climate and for controlling carbon dioxide emissions. Trees consume the carbon dioxide that humans exhale and produce 20% of the world’s oxygen. Rainforests are also important for providing water as 30% of the world’s freshwater derives from tropical forests.

Rainforest Facts:

- Rainforests now only cover around 6% of the earths surface compared to the 14%
  they covered before industrialisation.

- Around 25% of medical ingredients are derived from the rainforest. If rainforests are destroyed,
  the cures for many diseases and illnesses will disappear with them.

- With less trees to soak up carbon dioxide, global warming will have a greater impact.

- Approximately 1000 unknown species become extinct per year due to deforestation. Considering
  that 50% of the world's species live in the rainforests this is a terrible loss.

Deforestation

The large scale deforestation occurring today is the result of several corporate ventures including: logging, mining, cattle farming and mineral extraction. At the current rate of deforestation, an area the size of a football pitch is cut down every two seconds. This means, by the end of the century the earth’s rainforests will have completely disappeared. Greenpeace, an organisation committed to saving the environment, estimates the rate of deforestation to be significantly higher than we believe.

Developing sustainable projects that benefit both locals and the rainforest is one of the only solutions to combat this problem. Simple measures should be taken such as planting seeds after cutting down areas of forest and logging in areas that are less rich in wildlife and plants. The Brazilian government is auctioning off parts of the Brazilian Amazon in an attempt to combat illegal logging, a serious issue in Brazil. By doing so, the government hopes to control the areas of the Amazon being used for logging. Companies will be limited in the number of trees they can cut down per acre and loggers will be required to plant seeds after cutting down each tree. Sustainable methods of logging and utilisation of rainforest resources therefore need to be implemented on a global scale in order to preserve the worlds tropical forests.

The biggest contributor to deforestation is the agricultural industry. Trees are felled in order to make room for growing crops like soya and for grazing livestock like cattle. Slash and burn techniques are employed by farmers whereby areas of the rainforest are chopped down and burnt, destroying all life and weakening the soil. Local farmers often have no other option than to clear areas for their farms. However, corporations and agricultural firms do have a choice as they can breed cattle on grasslands instead of unnecessarily destroying rainforest habitat.

Other factors contributing to deforestation include: urban sprawl, mining and road building. The latter occurs at the hand of logging companies and local loggers who build roads to access more remote areas of the forest.

Logging

Logging occurs both legally and illegally across the world’s rainforests for the purpose of timber production, to cater for the demands of predominantly Western markets. Major logging operations, which began in the 1900’s, have contributed to the decline of many rainforest regions including the Amazon Rainforest, the Atlantic Rainforest, the Indo-Burma forest and the forests of Borneo, Sumatra and Java. Corruption and illicit activities are rife among rainforest logging operations with corrupt officials allowing protected areas to be destroyed for the purpose of profit. While there are laws in countries like Brazil and Indonesia to protect forests, forestry departments often lack human resources to enforce any rainforest protection.

Palm Oil

Biodiversity is under significant threat from deforestation. Species become driven to the brink of extinction and in some cases animals and plants have been completely wiped out due to loss of habitat. The rainforests of Borneo, the third largest island in the world, offer some of the world’s most diverse species of animals and plants. Heavy deforestation is currently occurring in Borneo due to logging, agriculture and the palm oil industry. Palm oil is used for cosmetics, vegetable oils, food and bio diesel fuels and producing palm oil requires a tropical climate. As a result, companies will exploit topical rainforests by cutting down huge areas to make room for plantations. Palm oil plantations not only contribute to deforestation, they also contribute to the loss of biodiversity. Growing palm oil is one of the biggest threats to the extinction of many species including orangutans.

Agriculture

Land clearance for agriculture and the creation of plantations is another key contributor to deforestation and the decline of rainforest regions. People living in poverty are given little option but to clear areas of rainforest for cattle grazing and for soya, corn, palm oil, eucalyptus, coffee and tobacco plantations. Slash and burn techniques, which involve burning entire areas of forest, are often employed to create room for fields. Slash and burn methods have been employed by indigenous communities for hundreds of years, often in a small-scale sustainable manner. But for the last few decades, land clearing cycles have been occurring at a rapid rate and in a non-rotational manner, leaving previously destroyed areas of land little chance to recover.

Urbanisation

Urban sprawl in developing nations, particularly in South America, is encouraging colonisation of rainforests areas, as a means of alleviating unequal population distribution. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s some developing nations encouraged citizens to relocate to sparsely populated regions of rainforest to create an income for poorer citizens and to reduce the overcrowding in city slums.

Brazil, Indonesia and Ecuador are among some of the developing nations that have, in the past, encouraged the urbanisation of forested areas by offering tax incentives as well as creating road networks for new settlements. Indonesia alone helped relocate 6 million people to rainforest regions, resulting in huge clearances of land and unsustainable rates of deforestation. Road building is considered a successful incentive by governments in encouraging people to populate regions previously unpopulated by humans. The creation or roads encourages towns to be created, crops to be planted and more rainforest to be destroyed.

Rainforest Animals

The animal populations of rainforests around the world not only face threats from deforestation, they are also vulnerable to hunters and wildlife traders. In the Amazon rainforest alone, up to 23.5 reptiles, mammals and birds are hunted and killed for food every year. In the rainforests of equatorial Africa, it is estimated that the number of animals killed by hunters is 6-12 times the amount killed in the Amazon. The international wildlife trade, fuelled by a demand for exotic pets, takes millions of animals from their homes every year to be sold to pet stores, to aquariums and to zoos. Most shocking of all, less than 10% of all animals smuggled from their natural habitat survive the journey to their final destination. Endangered species like the Sumatran tiger, the orangutan and the pangolin are also threatened by poachers who kill them for trophies and sell their body parts for Chinese traditional medicine.

Action

Promoting the use of sustainable agriculture, forest management and logging by encouraging governments and companies to be responsible is key to help reduce the overall level of deforestation. Individuals can help promote sustainable forest management by committing to buying items that are sustainably sourced and environmentally friendly. Many sustainable items will be certified by The Rainforest Alliance or another highly reputable organisation, allowing you to easily see which companies put the environment above profit. It’s also important to purchase fair trade items as they help support indigenous communities and poor farmers whilst being responsibly sourced. If you have the financial means to do so, donating to charities that help protect the world’s rainforests will ensure that thousands of animal and plant species are protected from the devastating effects of deforestation.