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What are the real facts Rainforest?

We all know that some facts about rainforests from Tarzan films, for example, the jungle is lush green vegetation, exotic animals, restless natives, and usually a few white men up to no good. But beyond the stereotypes, what are the real facts, the jungle? What is the situation of the world's tropical forests, and why it is important to preserve?

Here's the fact of the jungle first: Tropical rainforests are the oldest ecosystems on earth - that have been evolving for 70-100 million years.

The largest rainforest in the world is Amazonrainforest in South America, covering an area of about two thirds the size of the continental United States. To date, more than a quarter of a million square kilometers of Amazon rainforest have been cleared - about 17.5 percent of it.

The temperature average rain forests remain relatively constant throughout the year, usually in the range of 75-80F.

Mongabay lists the following countries with the highest tropical forest areas:

1) Brazil
2) Congo (Democratic Republic)
3) Indonesia
4) Peru
5) Bolivia
6) Angola
7) Venezuela
Papua New Guinea
9) Mexico
10) India

Although most rainforests are found in tropical regions, sometimes also found in temperate zone countries such as Canada, USA, and some of the countries of the former Soviet Union. As forest tropics, these forests have high rainfall all year and have a dense rainforest canopy, but do not receive year-round constant sunlight and heat.

To be considered a rain forest, the forest must obtain at least 80 inches of rain per year. Most tropical forests to reach any from 160 to 400 inches of rain per year. That's a lot compared to Grinning Planet home state of Kentucky, which gets a moderate amount of rainfall - 0-45 inches per year.

In some tropical forests, sudden downpours of rain can cause increased flows of 10-20 feet on a couple of hours.

Rainforests create your own mini-climates -- water that evaporates from the forest forms clouds above the area where it falls as rain. Not all the water stays local, of course, but in the Amazon jungle, the 50-80% of water remaining in the water cycle of the local ecosystem. When forests are cleared, much of the moisture in the ecosystem is lost, leading to drought and devastation of more species.

A tropical rainforest consists of four layers:

1) Pool - the level at which most of the treetops are

2) emergent trees - the few trees that manage to grow tall enough to push above the deck

3) ground vegetation - trees and young bushes below deck, where growth is limited by the lack of strong sunlight

Forest floor 4) - fall of leaves and branches and dead trees, and some animals and insects, dark and damp lots of decomposition and recycling.

A few inches of rainforest soil has most of nutrients, so that the roots of tropical forest trees are not very deep. Most of the growth of the plant is in the emerging and canopy layers, where the sun is strongest. That means that most of the available nutrients are there too, so it makes sense that most rainforest animals, including Monkeys, birds and tree frogs, live in the canopy.

Tropical forests cover only 2% of the earth's surface but are home to more than half of the planet's plant and animal species - more species per hectare than any other type of land-based ecosystem of the planet. The main reasons for this are:

1) the mega-doses of sunlight and rainfall in the jungle to do a lot of plant growth, which means lots of food for many animals, and

2) the roof structure, which has a large volume with many varied niches for plants and animals to fill.

The sidebar to the right gives fun facts about five species of tropical forest. To learn more interesting facts about the rainforest species, check out the pages of the species in general the Rainforest Alliance, or The Rainforest Action Network, or species of these thematic pages Mongabay, which have great pictures and basic information on forest species:

Mammals 1)
Birds 2)
3) Reptiles and Amphibians
Fish 4)
Insects 5)

Some animals that normally live outside the tropics - including hummingbirds, warblers and thousands of other birds of North America - to migrate to spend the winter in tropical forests.

A poison frog dart produces toxin sufficient to cover 50 to 100 poisoned darts. Leafcutter ants practice sustainable agriculture. They gather fragments from different plants and trees, ensuring that no species is harvested to the extent of damage and limiting the ability of any species to evolve to build defenses against the operations of the leafcutters.

The cocoa tree - whose pods are the source of chocolate - originated in the lowland rainforests near the Amazon River in Latin South, but is now cultivated as far north as southern Mexico.

The coffee plant is another shade lover. Unfortunately, in the 1970s, many farmers Coffee began planting coffee bushes that produce higher yields and requires no shade. This has resulted in the cleaning of the plantation forest area of most full-sun coffee.

Poinsettias originated in tropical forests of southern Mexico and Central America, but now the number one plant potted flowers in the U.S..

There are many common foods that come from rainforest plants:

1) Drinks and snacks: coffee, cocoa, popcorn, cola, salsa

2) Nuts and legumes: cashews, peanuts, Brazil nuts

3) Fruit: bananas, pineapples, oranges, lemons, coconuts

4) Staples: rice

5) Vegetables: avocados, onions, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers

6) Spices: ginger, cinnamon, vanilla

We regret that the report, however, that the vast world of plants and animals in the area is suffering. An average of 137 species of tropical forest are driven to extinction every day. The number one cause is loss of habitat due to logging for lumber or tree clearing for cropland to agriculture and livestock. Another problem is trade in rainforest species - sometimes legal, sometimes not - for exotic pets and plants, for fur, clothing and shoes, even for research animals.

Pollution from industrial operations such as mining and oil extraction have also its price. Finally, climate change is becoming a serious threat to animals of the jungle, many biologists now believe climate change is the second only habitat destruction in their ability to kill species.

The Amazon jungle is sometimes called the "lungs of the planet" -- that recycles carbon dioxide to produce more than 20% of the world of oxygen. Globally, tropical forests also play a critical role in maintaining the Earth's climate by helping regulate hydrologic cycles and by storing massive amounts of carbon that otherwise could be converted to heat carbon dioxide. Tropical forests are estimated to store 610 billion tonnes of carbon.

Tropical forests are removed by burning to generate immediate release of most of CO 2. But even the remains of plants that are left to rot causes a problem. In a healthy forest, dry leaves and trees are broken in nutrients that are then quickly converted back to the new plant growth, which uses carbon dioxide and close it away where you can not add to the problem of greenhouse gas accumulation. In a cleared forest, nutrients and carbon dioxide is still produced chart recorder during the decomposition of dead plant and animal matter, but there is no lush growth to use CO2, so it floats into the atmosphere to add to global warming.

While that the destruction of rainforests adds to the problem of global warming, global warming does harm the rainforests. As the climate warms the Earth, which tends to dry forests and the reasons why there has been less rainfall. As the dry tropical forest, its ecosystems begin to degrade and the area becomes more susceptible natural fire events, which cause more destruction of forests. Roots that once held the soil in place are no longer there, so when it rains, lava soil, which makes the restoration of rainforest areas difficult or impossible. In addition, the eroded soil washed into streams and rivers, contaminating water and degrading aquatic habitat.

The felling of forests is a big negative in the equation of CO2 from the Earth. The release of carbon dioxide materials in the soil of cleared, burned, and drought-devastated rainforest areas is one of a series of "feedback loops" that scientists think that could lead to runaway climate change - namely, climate change is being driven by factors that can not fight, no matter how hard we try.

Therefore, because climate change and health of the forest are indeed closely related, the implementation of your personal warming solutions help global rainforests.

Rainforests are amazing sources of products, both in terms of uniqueness and volume. But that may be something good or bad, depending on how to manage production. Some products like medicinal plants, Brazil nuts, and shade-grown coffee and cocoa, can be harvested sustainably from forests without damaging or destroying forests. Unfortunately, often these operations are conducted in an unsustainable manner. Industrial operations as the extraction of gold mining and oil are often very destructive to rainforests.

Registry operations for tropical timber products are often made by logging and contributed to much of the destruction of tropical rainforests. Each year, destroyed more than thirty million acre rainforest.

Tropical forests have given us medicines to treat or cure problems such as inflammation, fungal diseases, rheumatism, diabetes, muscle tension, malaria, heart disease, skin diseases, arthritis, and glaucoma. The U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified More than 2,200 forest plants that are active against cancer cells. And those are just those we have seen so far. Many, many more forests remain based compound to be evaluated for its healing properties. But the reward of the future is put at risk by the continued loss of tropical forest area and species.

Register defenders like to say that the world today actually has more acres of forest land it has in the past, with the implication that there is still plenty of forest for us to cut, including rainforests and other old-growth forests. However, a forest and then logging, replanting of trees leaves us with the original forest themselves - not even close. While it is possible for a company to replant trees, it is impossible for the company to recreate an ancient forest with its complex ecosystem plants, animals, insects, and people who lived there before all the original trees were felled. Only nature can create healthy ecosystems jungle, and it takes thousands, sometimes millions of years to do so.

Rainforests are fascinating, exotic places, full of organic and mineral wealth. But continued unsustainable exploitation of those riches is damaging the forests, and because of its connection with global climate change, these activities (between other things) endanger us all.

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