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Rainforests cover less than
two percent of the Earth's surface, yet they are home to 50 to
70 percent of all life forms on our planet.
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As many as 30 million species
of plants and animals - more than half of all
life forms - live in tropical rainforests.
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One acre of rainforest can
have as many as 80 different tree species, as compared to only
up to 25 species, in the forests of the USA.
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11/12ths of the world's ferns
are found in the rainforests.
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Rainforest vines can grow longer
than a football field, and thicker than a man's body. Some leaves
can reach six feet in length!
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North America has about 850
different species of trees. In the forests of the Amazon, an area
half the size of England holds 2500 different tree species!
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Epiphytes are plants that don't
need soil to live. They are commonly called "Air Plants",
and live in trees that are in the rainforest. They derive all
the nutrients and water they need either directly from the air,
or from the water and debris that falls from the trees in the
canopy. Orchids are the most famous of epiphytes, and as many
as 50 different orchids have been found on ONE single rainforest
tree! Over 27,000 species of air plants have been found in the
rainforests.
- Of all the plants that have cancer fighting
pharmacological properties, over 70 percent are found in tropical
rainforests.
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Every second, an area the size
of a football field of rainforest land is burned, bulldozed, and
completely destroyed.
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In one minute, the
time it will take to read these facts, an area equal to 10 city
blocks of rainforests will vanish forever- over 2.4 acres a second!
Over 214,000 acres a day are destroyed, amounting to an area larger
than the country of Poland, every single year.
. . over 78 million acres a year, until nothing
remains. . . or we stop it, whichever comes first. For our sakes,
I pray it is the latter.
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At the current rate
of destruction, by the end of the century, nothing will remain.
The children of the future will have to read about hundreds of
thousands of extinct plants, animals, and other life that lives
in the rainforest.
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Tropical Rainforests
encircling the equatorial region once amounted to over 8 million
square miles, now, less than 3.2 million square miles remain.
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Latin America and
Asia, which once held nearly half of all rainforests, have lost
nearly half of their tropical wonderlands. With them, countless
birds, insects, plants, and other life has been wiped out forever.
Many of the species of plants and animals are extinct before ever
being seen and identified.
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Scientists estimate
an average of 137 species of life forms become extinct every day.
. . 50,000 each year.
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The United States
has less than 4% of it's original forests left! 96 percent, have
been logged, burned, and completely obliterated!
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If the destruction
of rainforests continue at the current rate, scientists estimate
nearly 80-90 percent of tropical rainforest ecosystems will be
destroyed by the year 2020.
- In a reserve about half the size of San Franciso
in Peru, there are over 545 species of birds, over 100 species of
dragonflies, and nearly 800 different types of butterflies. Half
of the plants there haven't even been named yet!
- Nearly 17 percent of all the birds in the
world reside in the rainforests of Indonesia!
- The Rainforests of Southeast Asia have nearly
660 mammal species, and over 850 amphibian species, nearly one third
of ALL the mammals and amphibians in the world! Compare to Europe,
which has only about 130 native mammal species!
- One out of every three bird species is found
in the rainforest. In one wildlife reserve in Costa Rica, there
are more bird species than in the entire North American continent!
- Insects are the most numerous inhabitants
of the rainforest. Since many have never even been seen, much less
identified, an estimate is that there are over 80 million species
of insects that live in the rainforests!
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In one square mile of rainforest
in Africa, biologists have counted over 300 different types of
butterflies alone!
Don't buy tropical wood products. Skip the rosewood
and mahogany furniture and paneling. If you're a carpenter or building
contractor, don't buy plywood made from rainforest timber, and help
your customers to understand the importance of avoiding tropical woods.
If you are an architect or designer, don't select tropical hardwoods
for construction.
Boycott Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi trades timber
and hense is one of the worst corporate destroyers of forests in the
world. Mitsubishi purchases extensively from Malaysia, Borneo, Philippines,
Indonesia, Chile, Canada and Brazil, where nearly 60 percent of all
rainforests are located. Boycott members of the Mitsubishi group.
These include Mitsubishi Motors, Mitsubishi Electric (which makes
televisions, VCRs and fax machines), Kirin Beer, Nikon camera equipment,
Bank of California and Mitsubishi Bank. Let Mitsubishi know that you
want them to lead the industry in stopping deforestation and developing
ecologically sustainable alternatives.
Minoru Makihara
President, Mitsubishi Corporation
6-3, Marunouchi 2- chome
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-86
JAPAN 81-3-3210-2339 (Phone)
81-3-3210-8084 (Fax)
Change your diet. Don't eat rainforest
beef. It's typically found in fast-food hamburgers or processed beef
products. Each year the U.S. imports over 100 million pounds of fresh
and frozen beef from Central American countries. Two thirds of these
countries' rainforest has been cleared primarily to raise cattle,
whose stringy, cheap meat is exported to profit the U.S. food industry.
Because the beef is not labeled with its county of origin upon entering
the U.S., there is no way to trace it to it's sources. Write to the
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and let him know that you want a ban
on the import of beef from rainforest countries.
Dan Glickman
Secretary of Agriculture
14th St. & Independence Ave., SW
Washington, D.C. 20250
With financing from northern banks, ranchers
and timber barons clear rainforests by burning. The burning of the
rainforest accounts for a significant portion of the global output
of carbon dioxide, the main cause of the warming of the Earth's climate
known as the "Greenhouse Effect", or Global Warming. Write
to the Secretary General of the United Nations asking for a Declaration
of Accountability that will apply to all international agencies including
the World Bank, one of the largest funders of rainforest destruction,
International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. The
Declaration of Accountability would provide public access to information,
and public participation in decisionmaking.
Boutros-Boutros Ghalli
Secretary General
United Nations
New York, NY 10017
Conselvatur*
Selva Bananito Lodge. One of
the single most beautiful places in all of Costa Rica, as I've recently
had the pleasure of discovering. They have built all the cabins and
the lodge from discarded wood left in the forests by the loggers,
to show that all the waste is unneccesary. They generate income from
tourism for the protection of 850 hectares (2,000 acres) of privately
owned rainforest, and for the funding of special conservation projects
there and in neighboring areas. To minimize the impact of tourists
on this pristine rainforest environment, they host only a small number
of visitors at any one time. The seven spacious cabins are constructed
of beautiful, salvaged wood and stand at least 10 meters from one
another. They feature large, tiled bathrooms with solar-heated water,
one queen sized and one full sized bed, ample decks, and hammocks.
To maintain a more natural night-time atmosphere, they use no electricity
but provide oil lamps and candles for nighttime reading.
*CONSELVATUR
stands for Conservación de la Selva a través del Turismo, Sociedad
Anónima (Rainforest Conservation Through Tourism, Inc.)
Rainforest
Action Network
One of the longest standing organizations
dedicated to preserving the rainforest.
Conservation
International
Conservation International promotes
biodiversity conservation in raiforests and other endangered ecosystems
worldwide.
Science
in the Rainforest: An Electronic Fieldtrip
An online tour of the rainforest.
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