RAINFOREST FACTS

Here are some interesting rainforest facts, brought to you by Paradise Earth.

• Collectively rainforests harbor the single greatest repository of biological diversity: plants, animals and microorganisms.
• Rainforests effect climate change, are a source of useful medicine, and provide a living library with untold numbers of species with the potential to advance the life sciences.
• There are two major types of rainforest: temperate rainforests and tropical rainforests.
• Fifty-Seven percent of the world’s forests, including most tropical forests, are located in developing countries.
• Rainforests require a minimum of 100 inches of rain a year!
  Rainforests act as the world’s thermostat and weather patterns.
• One-Fifth of the world’s fresh water is found in the Amazon Basin. Rainforests are critical in maintaining the earth’s limited supply of drinking and fresh water.
• Rainforest trees are about 100-ft tall, but there are taller trees known as “emergents” that can easily reach an additional 30 ft above the canopy.
• A typical four-square mile patch of rainforest contains as many as 1,500 flowering plants, 750 species of trees, 400 species of birds, and 150 species of butterflies.
• Rainforests are teeming with species unknown to science. New species are being discovered all time; not just small organisms like insects but also birds and monkeys.
• Rainforest provide many important products for people: timber, coffee, cocoa and many medicinal products, including those used in the treatment of cancer.
• Seventy percent of the plants identified by the U.S. National Cancer Institute as useful in the treatment of cancer are found only in rainforests. More than 2,000 tropical forest plants have been identified by scientists as having anti-cancer properties. Less than one percent of the tropical rainforest species have been analyzed for their medicinal value.
• Rainforests are threatened by unsustainable agricultural, ranching, mining, and logging practices.
• Originally, 6 million square miles of tropical rainforest existed worldwide. But as a result of deforestation, only 2.6 million square miles remain.
• At the current rate of tropical forest loss, 5-10 percent of tropical rainforest species will be lost per decade.
• Nearly 90 percent o f the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide depend on forests for their livelihood.
• Every second, a slice of rainforest the size of a football field is mowed down. That’s 86,400 football fields of rainforest per day, or over 31 million football fields of rainforest each year. More than 56,000 square miles of natural forest are lost each year.
• The extinction of a large number of plant and animal species looms if the trends are not stopped and reforestation instituted.
• As a consequence of the Convention of Biological Diversity, Many rainforest countries now have active programs in rainforest protection. Rainforest protected areas and indigenous areas that protect native peoples and their forests have made significant progress.

To listen to some of these facts is quite upsetting. To hear that our society, our world that we live in is destroying large numbers of rainforest each year with no intention of stopping is just cold. But on the other hand these facts talk about how large in numbers of species there are in the rainforest. So again why would anybody want to destroy that?

Saving our World

My name is Holly Mandarich, I'm just a normal 17 year old teenager in a world full of people. I believe paradise earth has a greater goal then just preserving the rain forests. I believe that the program as a whole is designed to save us from ourselves, from the destruction of our planet, from global warming. The rainforest's have many grave wealth's to our planet. The Amazon rain forest alone provides more than 20% of our worlds oxygen. The things we would be without. If deforestation continues experts say that within the next 40 years we could see the extinction of rain forests! It is not only bad news for us but more so for the animals and plants that grow, live and thrive there. It is said the more than half of the of the 10 million plants, animals and insects live in the rain forest. To add to all that one fifth of the worlds freshwater comes from the Amazon basin. From how I look at it still after all these years America along with the rest of the world, doesn't care. I mean sure we say we do but we don't, because its not in the here and now its not really affecting us. Well in a sense it is in the hear and now. You see climate changes, weird weather patterns, glaciers melting and what not. One day it will be something like, so guess what California broke off. When something like that happens then society may come together and start caring. People are fictitious and aren't who you think they are. Even though they may say they care. They most likely don't. Humans as a species I think carry a trait of living in the here and now. Not everybody is like that but having a Gandhi is rare. People like him don't come around everyday. Those kind of people are leaders. I guess what I'm saying is we need a leader. We need another Gandhi or Jesus. Somebody who can give the world hope. Somebody to show people that things can change. We all want to believe but if nobodies there to show us how it is all going to go down then we chose to ignore. Whats going to happen when the rain forests are gone? They say that 137 plants, animal and insect species are being lost everyday that rain forest deforestation. The world is not just going to magically be like okay and fix everything. There are no second chances with our planet and our ecosystem. Its now or never. With paradise earth, I think things will change. I honestly think its going to be huge. To personally know the owner of the company and some of the team, and to see there devotion to such a program to see how much they really care. To care about the the world and those who are in it. To be selfless is huge. I don't know many people like that. Paradise Earth is going to provide and show people a rain forest. Show them a sample of what were destroying. Just taking a second from life. To look at how beautiful our planet really is. If you can get somebody to do that as I think Paradise Earth will and has done is quite utterly and great accomplishment. All people have to do is change there lives for the better is that really to much to ask of anybody. Go Green as they say. From what Ive heard its actually more efficient to buy a high mileage vehicle rather than a hybrid because the batteries in the hybrids have to be replaced more often and are very hard to dispose of. General Motors apparently has had a engine sense the 1950's that can get eighty miles to the gallon EIGHTY, but our government has made it illegal to produce it because it would mess up our economy. America is to dependent on oil. America along with the rest of the world does not want to change. People need to learn to step out of there comfort zone and do something to help the world, to be selfless. We all know whats going to happen if we don't do something to change it, but yet we still chose to ignore the truth. Paradise Earth is going to change the world and how people feel and care about it.