RAINFOREST FACTS

Here are some interesting rainforest facts that paradise earth has put together for this blog.

• 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?

Adolescence Vs. Survival

Everybody wants to make a life for themselves. They want to thrive. They want to feel secure and safe. To create a healthy and caring place for their family. Survival is utterly the most important thing for people. For humanity as a whole, but to what extent does survival of humanity make it okay for some people to be not worthy of being a part of that survival? From my understanding the people who are killing off the rain forest are the people who are the big corporations. The kind of people who are only in it for the profit, the benefit of benefiting themselves. Those are the kind of people who are selfish. The rain forests are being deforested in great numbers. Yet some of the people who are doing this are doing it for them. Well actually everybody is doing it for themselves. Some of them are doing it to be selfish others are doing it to merely survive. For those who are doing it to survive I feel somewhat sympathetic and bad for them as most likely the rest our cultures adolescent society thinks but yet we all started off the same way and we all progressed and grew. So who says they can’t do what we have done. They are humans aren’t they? They think and do just as everybody else does. So say we ban large corporations from destroying the rain forest and we continue to let individuals take what they need to survive, but honestly when they have enough aren’t they just going to want more? It is human nature. Then they start to grow and thrive and they what happens were screwed. Most of America’s adolescence would think to let the people, the individuals to take what they need and would be sympathetic but coming from me once you’ve made it to a point where you can support yourselves and be stable, get out. The rain forest wasn’t even ours to begin with, and we’ve destroyed more than half of it. I understand that survival is important yes of coarse when has it ever not been. Youth has its perks of being caring and motivated and nice. Being young also has its disadvantages to. Your uneducated, naive, selfish and you think you know everything about everything when in reality you know nothing. Your cascaded by this idea of I’m right you’re wrong. So I think that the adolescence of our country either care or they don’t. Most likely they could care less. It’s not happening to them half our country’s adolescence is not even happy with their lives they want to kill themselves because they’re so emotional. They will never know what it is like to not be able to survive. It takes a genuine human being to care about things like that and with the way America is set up people don’t care. America is a place of dreams where you can build your own life and that’s what the adolescence is focused on not whose barley surviving in the rain forest. I’m hoping Paradise Earth will reach out to not just the adult community to deliver the message of what is happening but it will reach out to particularly the adolescent community. People need a wake up call, especially all the naive ones.

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.

Finca Dracula Orchid Farm

This video showcases some of the beautiful orchids that the Paradise Earth team filmed while they were in Panama at Finca Dracula. Enjoy!

Paradise Earth in Panama, Video Diary of Day 7

In this diary entry, David Calvin talks about the trip that the Paradise Earth Team made to visit the Kuna Indians. The Kuna live on a series of islands off the coast of Panama, called collectively the San Blas Islands. Although not originally islanders, the Kuna were moved to this 'reservation' after the Spanish invasion of Panama. This matriarchal society was extremely interesting, colorful, and welcoming. For more beautiful images of the Kuna, be sure to check out our previous post on the San Blas Islands, which features images of the Kuna Indians.

Willie Mazu Slideshow

This photo slideshow contains some of our favorite images from our 5 days at Willie Mazu in Panama. Willie Mazu is owned and run by Wilberto Martinez and his family, and is located in the highlands of Bocas del Toro. The Paradise Earth Team truly could not have asked for a better, more experienced environmental guide than Willie! We highly recommend him and his services. For more info on Willie, visit his website at www.natturpanama.com

Our adventures at Willie Mazu included hiking to a remote waterfall, birding, an encounter with a deadly viper (see our previous post on the Jumping Pit Viper), and visiting nearby native tribes. Willie also shared some of the local flavor from Chiriqui Grande, the largest neighboring city.

The entire Paradise Earth Team was honored to be a part of this amazing journey!

Paradise Earth Press Release

For Immediate Release

Paradise Earth Team Visits Belize and Panama and Offers Free Video and Photos Online

The team behind the Paradise Earth rainforest habitat project in the greater Phoenix area recently traveled to Belize and Panama on an information-gathering mission. The results, including photo slideshows and video, are being offered for free to the public online at www.ParadiseEarth.com.

Phoenix, Arizona – April 8, 2008 – David Calvin’s Paradise Earth team recently traveled to Belize and Panama to gather information for the three-phase Paradise Earth project: the website (www.ParadiseEarth.com), the 165,000 square foot rainforest habitat and educational center being built in Arizona, and the Paradise Earth TV series. In line with the Paradise Earth mission of both conservation and education, the team has published video footage and photo slideshows of their travels on the website, freely available to the public.
“Educating the public about the world’s rainforests is really the first step to encouraging conservation,” says Char Mandarich of the Paradise Earth Media Team and the Mandarich Media Group. “We had the opportunity to document species that most people won’t ever see for themselves. The team wants to share these images with the public to help raise awareness as well as to simply share some of the Earth’s most beautiful creatures.”
Rainforests are disappearing across the globe, despite the growing popularity of living “greener” lives. The Paradise Earth team is making this photo and video collection available to educate the public about what they’re actually losing. Available resources from the recent trips to Panama and Belize include photo slideshows of the butterflies of Panama and the Kuna Indians of the San Blas Islands, and a video diary filmed daily by Calvin in Panama.
While in Panama, Calvin visited with Bill Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Laurance participated in a video interview, which is also now available on the Paradise Earth website.
The site is also currently featuring “The Story of the Rainforest,” a collection of articles about how rainforests work, the biological richness and diversity of rainforests, and more from pre-eminent rainforest expert Thomas Lovejoy.
The team’s website videographer, former NFL player Tony Mandarich, will offer site visitors a rare glimpse at a species of bird very rarely seen – the Cock of the Rock. The video will soon be added to the Paradise Earth website.

The Paradise Earth team includes:
David Calvin – Founder and TV show co-host
Craig Allison – TV show co-host
Glenda Skalitzky-Zaborski – TV show producer, Goodwitch Productions
Char and Tony Mandarich – Paradise Earth Media Team, Mandarich Media Group
Jason Shane – Bird expert
The Paradise Earth film crew

About Paradise Earth
Paradise Earth is a 165,000 square foot rainforest habitat, aviary, educational center, and conference facility in the greater Phoenix area founded by David Calvin, owner of development firm Calvin Enterprises. Paradise Earth is expected to open in the next two years with a mission of both education and conservation, and the habitat will be home to thousands of species of birds, trees, and other plants indigenous to the world’s rainforests. Educational materials on issues such as ecology, rainforest conservation, environmental protection, and recycling will be available to the public. The facility will house a 10,000 square foot conference center with event catering, educational, interactive exhibit space, movie theater, and café and gift shop. The rainforest habitat alone will span over 75,000 square feet.
For additional information on Paradise Earth of the recent excursions of the Paradise Earth team to Belize and Panama, please visit www.ParadiseEarth.com or contact the Paradise Earth office at 480-621-7530.
High resolution photos and videos are available by contacting Char Mandarich of Mandarich Media Group at 480-277-7888.

Contact:
David Calvin
Paradise Earth, LLC
Phone: 480-621-7530
Web: www.ParadiseEarth.com
Email: info@paradiseearth.com

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