Conservation of Tropical Forests

1. Conservation of Tropical Forests

2. Veranda AWNC in T&T

3. The rainforest is lush and large!

4. There is often a break in the canopy offering a glimpse of sunlight.

5. My first experience in a tropical rainforest!

6. Rainforest Cycle & our (human) concerns • 1000+ year rotation occurs naturally • However, many people are worried b/c there has been rapid depletion of the rainforests during modern times • There are no highly quantified numbers of what is actually being cut, in fact, you can fly over the Amazon for hours only seeing closed canopy!

7. The largest and most famous rainforest is the Amazon rainforest of South America. There are other rainforests in Africa and Asia. The rainforests are shown as the colored areas in this diagram.

9. Amazon rainforest

11. Aerial view of the Amazon rainforest Picture courtesy of PhotoLibrary.com

12. Arial view of a river meandering through the Amazon Rainforest From Southwestern College website

13. Amazon

14. Amazon tree fall

15. There is a plethora of information on this topic on the web. Here’s one site: • The Amazon Rainforest is an interactive study about the deforestation that is occurring in the Brazilian section of the Amazon rainforest (also known as Brazilian Amazonia). A variety of hyperlinks are provided to investigate the impact of deforestation on the rainforest ecosystem and the global implications of this. • At least 16 per cent of Brazil's Amazon rainforest has been lost. http://www.longman.com.au/atlas/compweb/001/intro.html

16. And another: • The Amazon rainforest - a world resource • the original size of the rainforest was around 6 million square kilometers, making it larger than western Europe • the Amazon now accounts for between 30% and 50% of the world's remaining rainforest • there is a greater variety of animals and plants in a few hectares of the Amazon rainforest than in the whole of Europe

17. 75% of the world's living species are found in the Amazon rainforest • the Amazon rainforest contains an estimated 2,500 species of trees • there are estimated to be between two and 30 million different species of insects • the diversity of life is so great that only about 1% of species has been studied by scientists • some estimates suggest that hundreds of species are being made extinct every day because of forest clearance • Unfortunately, the world's rainforests are being rapidly cleared for farming, mining and timber.

18. Given the rate of forest clearance it may be that we will never know the true level of the Amazon rainforests' natural wealth. Species will become extinct before we even know of their existence.

19. Rainforest destruction The rainforests are being cleared away so that people can make profits from their resources. This cannot go on forever. It is not a sustainable way of using the forests. Once the forest is cleared, the fragile ecosystem is destroyed. The unique plants and animals are lost forever. Many people argue that we need to find a more sustainable way of using these precious biological resources for the future. Rainforest destruction • The rainforests are being cleared away so that people can make profits from their resources. This cannot go on forever. It is not a sustainable way of using the forests. Once the forest is cleared, the fragile ecosystem is destroyed. The unique plants and animals are lost forever. Many people argue that we need to find a more sustainable way of using these precious biological resources for the future. http://www.learn.co.uk/edenproject/lessons/plant2/activity2.htm

20. The End?