Rainforests Part 2

1. Some Animals that live in rainforests are: Sumatran Orangutan, Squirrel Monkey, Jaguar, Sloths, Aconda Snakes, Emerald Tree Boa Constrictor,

Tarantula, Scorpion and Red-eyed Frog.

1. From slithering anacondas to fluttering blue morpho butterflies, rainforests teem with life—in fact, these precious ecosystems are home to 80 percent of the world's terrestrial biodiversity. The Rainforest Alliance works hard to protect rainforests and the biodiversity within them through the sustainable management of tropical forests, restoring degraded land surrounding forests, and protecting rivers and streams.
2. Mountain gorillas are the largest living primates on earth! Along with chimpanzees, orangutan, and bonobos, they are the closest living relatives of humans, with mountain gorillas having the most developed brain of the four. They live primarily on the lush mountain sides of national parks in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa. Mountain gorillas live in groups of roughly 30 members, with one dominant, male troop leader called a ‘silverback’ for the silver colour in his coat.
3. With its brilliant, iridescent blue wings, the blue morpho butterfly flutters through the rainforest canopy. The many “eyespots” on its brown underside trick predators into thinking the butterfly is a large predator.
4. The striking okapi—the closest living relative of the giraffe—lives in the dense tropical Iturbi Forest of Central Africa.
5. The slow-moving sloth, weighing only eight or nine pounds, lives exclusively in trees, feeding on leaves, twigs, and fruit. It moves so slowly that its fur takes on a green tinge from the algae that grows on it. It can take a month to digest a single meal.
6. Jaguars are famous for their beautiful spotted coats, which help them hide amongst the grasses, bushes, and trees where they live. The rare, all-black (melanistic) jaguar is what we commonly refer to as a black panther. Jaguars are known to eat more than 85 species of prey, including armadillos, peccaries, capybara, tapir, deer, squirrels, and birds and can even snatch fish, turtles and young caiman from the water, but can run so fast but only in a short period of time.
7. Bearing a strong resemblance to its guinea pig cousin, the capybara is the largest rodent on Earth, weighing in at more than 100 pounds and standing two feet tall. It lives in the dense vegetation that surrounds water, and frequently leaps in water bodies to hide from predators. It can hold its breath for up to five minutes.
8. One of the most iconic rainforest species, the scarlet macaw is a striking, large parrot with bright red plumage and brilliant blue and yellow wing feathers. Its powerful beak can open hard nuts and seeds. Scarlet macaws are one of the few species that mate for life.
9. One of the most brightly coloured animals on the planet, the poison dart frog uses its colour to warn predators of the toxic venom the lies within its skin. Indigenous cultures often use this frog’s poison to coat the tip of blow darts used for hunting.
10. The black howler monkey earns its moniker with the loud howl it uses to mark territory. These monkeys live high up in tall rainforest trees in groups of 4 to 19.
11. Named for its thick, dark, and bear-like fur, the Sulawesi bear cuscus isn't a true bear, but is actually an arboreal marsupial. Like other marsupials, the female Sulawesi bear cuscus gives birth to relatively underdeveloped offspring and carries the infant in a pouch on her belly until it is approximately eight months old and sufficiently developed for survival. They live in the undisturbed forests of Indonesia, predominantly on the island of Sulawesi.
12. The storied green anaconda is one of the largest snakes in the world, reaching over 30 feet in length, 12 inches in diameter, and weighing over 550 pounds. Due to its size, it is quite cumbersome on land, but it is stealthy in the water.
13. No one knows exactly how many species live in the world's tropical rainforests — estimates range from 3 to 50 million species.
14. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world, with an estimated 390 billion individual trees divided into 16,000 species.
15. The smallest rainforest in the world is Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve – located in the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It might be only 25 acres but it is home to native wildlife like monkeys, lizards, pythons, and - possibly the most exotic of all animals - squirrels!
16. The Raintree Rainforest (Located in Australia) is estimated to be 180 million years old which is tens of millions of years older than the Amazon Rainforest.
17. Rainforest animals include mammals such as sloths, tapirs, jaguars, tigers, howler monkeys, spider monkeys and orangutans; reptiles such as caimans and the green anaconda; amphibians such as poison dart frogs and the red-eyed tree frog; and birds such as toucans, macaws and the harpy eagle.
18. Experts fear that we are losing about 137 species of plants, animals and insects every single day due to rainforest deforestation.





(Picture of green anaconda) ---->

Rainforests Part 3

1. In the past, tropical rainforests covered 14% of the Earth. But over time, humans have destroyed over half of that enormous area of vibrant, diverse forest. In just 40 years, the world’s tropical rainforests could be entirely lost if current rates of degradation continue. Because of rampant extraction of natural resources, global demand for fossil fuels and cash crops like soy or beef, and because indigenous peoples’ rights are so often denied and stolen by governments and industries, tropical rainforest are disappearing faster than they can regenerate. Between 2002 and 2020, 60 million hectares of primary tropical forest was destroyed, an area larger than the areas of Missouri and California combined.

Deforestation accounts for the loss of 137 plant, animal, and insect species each day, or 50,000 species per year. Ecosystems are intricate webs of interactions between species– from fungus to insects to tropical birds to jaguars. Each species plays an important role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem, and species depend on each other to survive. When the web is disrupted, and a species is lost, it can result in a chain reaction that causes some species to explode in population and others to suffer.

Therefore, the loss of one species can make an entire ecosystem unbalanced, spiralling towards a “tipping point” at which the ecosystem cannot fully recover. Reaching a tipping point would mean that huge areas of tropical forest would become savannah.

1. Biodiversity loss is a threat to human lives and lifestyles, and many people, especially in 2020, are exploring global strategies for addressing the biodiversity crisis. Preventing deforestation must be a key part of this effort. Habitat fragmentation also increases the risk of zoonotic diseases spreading to humans, like COVID-19.

A quarter Western pharmaceuticals is made from ingredients found in tropical rainforests. Medications used to treat various physical and physiological ailments require the use of plants that are found exclusively in the tropical rainforest. Almost 90% of all known diseases have treatments that originate in plants and animals, many of which are from rainforests.

For example, the Madagascar periwinkle flower is used to treat acute lymphocytic leukaemia, a previously fatal paediatric cancer. Fifty years ago, almost all of the children diagnosed with this cancer would die. Today, however, the Madagascar periwinkle enables over 80% of patients to be cured entirely.

1. The story of bioprospecting, extraction of plants and animals for western pharmaceutical purposes, is fraught with exploitation. But when indigenous knowledge is respected, compensated, and recognized as science, working at the intersections of traditional knowledge and western science practices can create effective treatments that save many lives.

Rainforests influence local and regional weather patterns and regulates climate around the world. Despite covering less than 3% of Earth’s surface, rainforests play a key role in absorbing atmospheric CO2. But the role of rainforests as an important carbon sink is complex. As large areas of rainforest are deforested through logging and burning, they can also act as sources of carbon emissions.

An estimated 55% of the emissions released by burning fossil fuels between 1960 and 2015 were absorbed by oceans and forests. This ability to significantly affect the overall level of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere makes rainforests key in shaping the climate of the entire planet.

Rainforests also play a role in the water cycle, regulating local and global rain patterns. By releasing water vapor into the atmosphere, trees “recycle” the water they use into an accessible form: rain. Rainforests also lower local temperatures, creating humid conditions that increase rainfall and cloud formation.

When plants grow they sequester atmospheric carbon in their tissues via the process of photosynthesis. Because rainforests are full of large trees and other plants, they store massive amounts of carbon. But when they are burned or chopped down, much of that carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (nitrous oxide, methane, and other nitrogen oxides). The clearing and burning of tropical forests and peatlands accounts for about ten percent of greenhouse gases from human activities.

1. Therefore rainforest protection and restoration are critical to slowing climate change. By one estimate, published in 2015 in the scientific journal Nature, rainforests could meet half the 2050 target for reducing carbon emissions.

Whether you live tens, hundreds, or thousands of miles from the nearest rainforest, you affect rainforests and they affect you. Your choices and actions can help or hurt these vital and vibrant forests around the world.

Governments and financial institutions are starting to value ecosystem services, biodiversity, and unexploited natural spaces through economic mechanisms that incentivize conservation and ecological care. Although there is a long way to go, and large scale, serious policy and structural change is needed, these policies are crucial.

1. We can all, in our day to day lives, make choices to support the world’s rainforests, by buying from companies and using banks that don’t contribute to deforestation and destruction of tropical forests. You can boycott products that drive deforestation, write to political and corporate leaders to demand action to protect, not destroy, rainforests. We by working alongside and in support of indigenous peoples in rainforests, we can best uplift their stewardship and defence of these critical spaces. Securing legal rights, land titles, protection, and strengthening economic independence and political power of indigenous peoples is key to protecting rainforests around the world, from the Philippines to the Amazon.



(Picture of trees in the Amazon) ----------------->

Rainforests Part 4

1. There are two different types of rainforests, and they include both temperate and tropical. The tropical rainforests are the ones that are most commonly found around the world.
2. Rainforests are so rich in biodiversity that about 1/4 of natural medicines have been discovered in rainforests. They hold enormous potential for future discoveries.
3. The Amazon is so big that if it were a country, it would be the ninth biggest in the world.
4. Every second, there is part of the rainforest that is cut down. In fact, you probably lose a football pitch vanished every six seconds, which means over 80,000 football fields worth of rainforest each and every day.
5. According to Global Forest Watch, our planet loses tropical forestland equivalent to the size of Bangladesh every year. In 2017 alone, we lost 15.8 million hectares of tropical forests; all told, humans have destroyed nearly half of the world’s original forest cover.
6. A lot of the oxygen supply that we have throughout the world is supplied by the tropical rainforests because of the number of trees in the tropical rainforest biome, even though they are miles and miles away. This may come as a shock to some people.
7. The average temperature of the tropical rainforest remains between 21.1 - 29.44° C.
8. Timber, coffee, cocoa and many medicinal products are few of the products produced by rainforests, including those used in the treatment of cancer.
9. More than 56,000 square miles of natural forest are lost each year.
10. Some rainforest monkeys are omnivores, eating both animals and plants. Flying animals of Asian rainforests include frogs, squirrels and snakes.
11. Bold new ideas are being proposed to save rainforests.
12. More than 2,000 different species of butterflies are found in the rainforests of South America.
13. Bats are essential for the pollination of many tropical foodstuffs such as bananas and mangoes.
14. About 2,000 trees per minute are cut down in the rainforests.

Deforestation:

Consequences:

1. Less oxygen (O2)
2. Food chain might collapse
3. Less food
4. Animals with No home
5. Less shelter
6. Fewer species
7. Climate Change/Global Warming
8. Soil Erosion

Reasons for deforestation:

1. Housing
2. Room for Farming
3. Furniture/Paper
4. Fuel

What deforestation is:

When people cut down Trees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlh2xmccbo

(Copy and paste will give a link about rainforests below)