Hi!  My name is Kreshia!

And this is my friend Miranda.  She's a " way cool " Mama Bear... 

        There are a great many plants and flowers in the rainforest.  So many, that we still do not know all of them.  They are an essential part of the eco-system  and provide many useful things for us as well as being beautiful.  Some are used for food and others for medicinal purposes, not only for the human kind but for the animals too.  For every plant that is lost to the destruction of the forests we loose another possible cure for disease.    If you want to know more about the plant life of a rainforest go here...
 
 
        Do you have any idea how many plants and animals live in the rainforests?  Or what their relationship to each other is??
        Guess... Oh, go ahead and try!
Well, you might be right, but we won't know for a while because they are still trying to count the new species that are being found everyday!  There are over 30,000,000 so far.  Can you imagine?
        Animals and plants that we have never seen or heard about are just now being discovered. I'll bet you didn't know that there are spiders that even eat birds!
                                            Hey! Look out little guy...
 

        Some animals are even suffering from stress because of the destruction of their homes!
        This is Whisper, by the way!  Whisper... met our new friends.  Don't be shy!  They won't hurt you!  I know, I know... Zebra's don't live in the rainforest!  But frankly, he was the only one who was willing to come with us to help out!
        Shhh... be very quite!  He's a little jumpy right now, there's a rumor going around that a bulldozer is on it's way here!

        Did you know that the forests cover only 2% of the earth's surface, but are home to 50 - 70% of all life forms on earth?   Want to know more?  Go here... to the Rainforest Action Network.

 
        In the 16th century there were 6 - 9 million indigenous people living in the Brazilian rainforest alone.
        By 1992 that number had decreased to less than 200,000.  The destruction rate of our rainforests is currently 150 acres per minute.  That equals 214,000 acres per day!  An area larger than the size of New York City...

 
Why should we be concerned about the indigenous people?

Well, we all need each other, no matter what color our skin, what are belief systems are or where we come from!  We are all one big family living on Mother Earth.  But besides that...

     We need the native cultures to teach us how to live in harmony and balance with Mother Earth.  We need to learn how to use and live with nature without damaging it.  We must learn new ways of harvesting without jeopardizing the future of our children, our grand-children and the next seven generations.  If we learn to work together we will preserve more than the forests; we will preserve the future of our world.

Tribal people are responsible for more than half of the medical knowledge and medicines we have today.  They have lived in the forests for hundreds of thousands of years and have willingly shared their healing practices and medicinal plants with us.  When their homes are destroyed, they have to move to the cities and most of them end up very sick and even die because they have never been exposed to our diseases before.  Everything they need to survive they have to leave behind in their forest homes.
       

By preserving indigenous cultures we have the key to saving the rainforests and insuring the future of our planet and loved ones.  By listening to them and learning from them we can create a stable environment and begin to utilize a bountiful resource we have instead of destroying it.

Plants and animals who's homes are being destroyed will become extinct forever.  It is hard to imagine; what has taken millions of years to develop is being destroyed on a daily basis and most of that destruction has taken place within the last 50 years.  At this rate we are in danger of blinking out of existance all together; if we don't all do what we can to stop it now.

        Destroying the forests alters the global weather patterns and the hydrological cycle; causing drought, flooding, and soil erosion.  It also changes the reflectivity of the earth's surface, which alters wind and ocean current patterns; and changes the rainfall distribution.

 

We lose 70 million acres per year to make way for industrial logging, cattle ranching, mining, oil extraction and hydroelectric dams.  These are some of the major causes of rainforest destruction.

  Is clear cutting the only way we are losing our forest?

No.  We are losing forests to mass burns to make way for cattle ranchs to produce a quick source and supply of beef.   Massive burns cause destruction to the ozone layer; which offers us protection from upper atmospheric radiation.  This is a major contributor to the "Green house effect".   " Hey, Kreshia!  Did you bring your sunblock? "
 

How long does it take to make a forest?

        5.  Naturally evolving forests are an essential component of the earth's life support system and are essentially the lungs of the earth;  they stabilize earth's climate, preserve wildlife habitat, protect watersheds and maintain soil productivity.
  

What can we do to help? We can become involved, by doing several things...
Find the answers on this page...

These are some of the areas in the world that have rainforests.

If you know of any more, mail us the names and we will add them to our list with your name next to them!
 

                 

                 

                 

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