OUR FORESTS AND JUNGLES (Laura Calacha, Antonela Esteve y Yesica Toledo)

OUR FORESTS AND JUNGLES

Forests and jungles touch our lives every day. They have done

for millions of years, since the world’s first peoples used them

to get shelter, food, water, and firewood.

Today, 300 million people still live in forests and over one billion people depend on them for their livelihood. Forests cover almost one third of our planet’s land area and well over half of the species found on land live in forests.

There are many kinds of forest on our planet, but they all contain a delicate balance of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria. Forests provide us with many resources, including food, paper, building materials, chocolate, medicines, and even the air we breathe. Forests make rainfall and filter reshwater. Most importantly, they are the lungs of our planet, and soak up carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO FORESTS?

Forests are under threat. Every year 8.8 million hectares of natural forest are cut down – that’s an area the size of a football field every second. Forests are being cleared for agriculture, often to grow food for animals such as pigs and poultry. In many parts of the world, illegal logging is leading to damage or loss of healthy forests. Many protected tree species are being over-harvested, and

the wood is sold to be used for buildings and furniture. Around the world, wood is still used by more than a quarter of the world’s people for cooking and heating – and the world population is growing.

Forests are naturally resilient, and areas cleared of tree cover can spring back to life if given a chance, even after huge forest fires. In fact, natural fires started by lightning may seem to be a terrible thing for forests, but actually often allows them to grow back stronger and to support a bigger variety of animals and plants than if the trees just kept growing. Some pine trees are adapted to frequent

ires, and have cones that only open to release seeds in the heat of a fierce fire. The ash after a fire is filled with nutrients and perfect for new plants and trees to grow in the space left by the trees that have burned to the ground.

FORESTS FOR THE FUTURE

We should all think carefully about how we use wood and the products made from it. It is best to use reused or recycled materials first and then if, we buy new, to ensure that the supply is from a responsibly managed source. One way to verify this is to choose products with an FSC label which shows that it comes from a well-managed forest where removal of trees for timber is done in a way that allows the forest and its inhabitants to continue to thrive for the future.

We also need to help forests recover by allowing areas that have lost tree cover to become forested again, especially where this connects fragmented pieces of forest into landscapes covered in trees. We know that forests are resilient and can recover if we let them. Doing this will ensure that amazing wildlife has a home, while we still have the benefit of wood and other forest products from well managed forests now and in the future.

SOURCE: Our Planet NETFLIX (https://www.ourplanet.com/en)
PUBLISHED: 2019

                                            Michael Jackson - Earth Song (Official Video)