Rain forests : current status

The rain forest is being lost at a rate of 20,000 hectares per day

(Source: United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation)

It is well known that the World is facing a huge crisis of global warming, that temperatures are increasing, weather extremes are causing more disasters and that rising water levels are a constant threat. The loss of tropical rain forests is regarded as an important factor in the global warming issue.

Rainforest locations

Rainforests cover only 5% of the earth's surface yet over half of the world's species live in them. 25% of all known medicines contain compounds from rainforest plants, yet only 1% of the plants have been tested for their medicinal qualities. A large proportion of the most important basic foods known to man have their origins in the rainforests. Our responsibility to protect this environment is obvious.

  • Fact: Rainforests are threatened by unsustainable agricultural, ranching, mining and logging practices.
  • Fact: Originally, about 15 million square kilometres of tropical rainforest existed worldwide. But as a result of deforestation, only about 6.5 million square kilometres remain.
  • Fact: At the current rate of tropical forest loss, 5-10 percent of tropical rainforest species will be lost per decade.
  • Fact: Nearly 90 percent of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide depend on forests for their livelihoods.
  • Fact: Fifty-seven percent of the world's forests, including most tropical forests, are located in developing countries.
  • Fact: 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.

Our responsibility to protect this environment is obvious. Green Gold Forestry is helping to reduce the need to cut down the rainforest.