Posts Tagged ‘rainforest’
Trees are Getting Bigger and Better
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
According to Greenpeace rainforest trees are getting bigger, which is excellent in the battle against climate change.
A group of scientists who are reporting on a 40 year study of African tropical forests have found that over the past few decades each hectare of intact African forest has trapped an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon per year.
Dr Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds, and the lead author of the paper says that “we are receiving a free subsidy from nature,” because “tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18 per cent of the CO2 added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of climate change”.
This study has been based on 3 major forests, the Amazon in South America, the Paradise Forests in south east Asia, and the forests of the Congo Basin in central Africa. Each one an essential part of the worlds eco system, slowly helping to remove some of the carbon monoxide we produce daily.
Dr Lee White, co-author on the study and Gabon’s chief climate change scientist, said: “To get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a tonne of carbon, should be valued at around £13 billion per year. This is a compelling argument for conserving tropical forests.”
Rainforests are amazing they actually suck the carbon monoxide from the air, expelling oxygen. These rainforest are slowly being destroyed basically for human pleasure.
Unfortunately, at the moment we are not valuing these ancient forests for what they provide. Worldwide, rainforests are still being cut down and degraded at a staggering rate. They urgently need protecting. Charities like Greenpeace are doing all they can to highlight this issue to people in position of power so that something will be done.
Funding and education are essential to the cause so that the people living in these forests can understand their importance and see value in keeping the forests how they are rather than cutting them down.
We all know the world is changing perhaps this study will finally highlight the importance of trees. Forests have been destroyed all over the world and each hectare which disappears takes away some of our protection from Co2 and climate change.
It is estimated that 13 million hectares of the worlds forests are destroyed each year, 6 million of these have been largely untouched and undisturbed by man.
The result of this major deforestation is a loss of habitat for wildlife and also a reduction or complete removal of the ecosystem services provided by these forests.
Its time to stop, look and listen… we can not afford to keep destroying the planet in this way, no matter how much economic value is in the land and trees themselves.
Tags: Climate Change, Forest, global warming, Greenpeace, rainforest, science, trees, wildlife
Posted in Environment, trees | No Comments »
Rainforests of the Deep
Friday, October 10th, 2008
Coral reefs are the largest living structures on earth, and provide the backbone for some of the planet’s most spectacular ecosystems. Like underwater forests, coral reefs provide a nurturing habitat for an astonishing variety of marine life. In fact, despite only covering a tiny portion of the ocean’s surface area, coral reefs are home to a quarter of all the species that live in the ocean!
For this reason, coral reefs are sometimes referred to as the rainforests of the sea.
In addition to sheltering so many of the ocean’s creatures, coral reefs are also visually stunning. Filled with colour, shape and texture, they resemble nothing so much as an underwater fairyland. Naturally, the backbone of a coral reef is coral.
A coral reef is composed of “living stone,” made up of thousands upon of thousands of individual coral organisms, called polyps. Coral polyps are small, soft-bodied creatures that create limestone skeletons for themselves using calcium and carbon dioxide from ocean water. (more…)
Tags: coral, Ocean, rainforest
Posted in Environment | 1 Comment »