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Rain Forest Essay, Research Paper

The Rain Forest

The destruction of the rainforest is a problem that the people of the

world can not continue to ignore. 14 percent of the Earth’s land used to be

covered by rainforests yet this number has dropped significantly to only about 6

percent (http://www.ran.org/ran/info_center/index.html). Rainforests provide

the people of the world with many necessities, some of which would no longer be

available if rainforests did not exist. In the last 50 years, rainforests have

declined at a terrifying speed of 150 acres per minute or 75 million acres per

year (http://www.ran.org/ran/info_center/index.html). People must open their

eyes to the horrible tragedy that will inevitably occur if the citizens of the

world do not realize the seriousness of this problem.

To better understand the importance of the rainforest, one must be

knowledgeable about what a rainforest actually is. The two main types of

rainforests are temperate and tropical. Tropical rainforests are located in

Latin and South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and other areas in which

temperatures stay above 80 degrees Fahrenheit year round. They can be found in

85 countries all over the world, however, 90 percent of them are concentrated

into fifteen countries, each containing over ten million hectares. Tropical

rainforests receive 160 to 400 inches of rain each year. Although these dense,

damp forests cover just 5 percent of the Earth’s surface, they can provide homes

for between 50 and 90 percent of the Earth’s plants and animals

(http://www.davesite.com/rainforests/review1.shtml).

Tropical rainforests consist of three distinct layers referred to as the

forest floor, the understory, and the canopy. The forest floor contains very

poor soil which is mainly due to the trees not allowing for ample sunlight to

reach the ground. Because only one to two percent of the light at the top of

the forest’s canopy manages to reach the floor below, photosynthesis ceases to

exist. On top of the soil lies a thin layer of the remains of millions of dead

trees, plants, and animals which are quickly broken down by the numerous number

of organisms on the floor (Nichol 45). It contains a variety of insects as well

as larger mammals such as gorillas and jaguars. The understory is home to

smaller mammals such as anteaters, lemurs, and tree kangaroos. It also contains

small trees and numerous shrubs. The top layer, the canopy, is made up of the

tops of trees which can grow to be over 200 feet in height. Here, trees receive

the necessary sunlight to undergo photosynthesis which is crucial for the

survival of the forest as a whole. Many tropical birds, monkeys, apes, snakes,

and other animals reside in the canopy

(http://www.davesite.com/rainforests/review1.shtml).

Temperate rainforests are located along the Pacific coast of Canada, the

United States, New Zealand, Tasmania, Chile, Ireland, as well as Scotland and

Norway. Most temperate rainforests are much younger than tropical rainforests

only being less than 10, 000 years old. The temperate rainforests differ from

the tropical in that their soil is full of much more nutrients. Temperate

rainforests are also much more scarce than tropical rainforests

(http://www.davesite.com/rainforests/review1.shtml).

The rainforests of the world are homes to just about every group of

animals known to man and it would be impossible to give recognition to them all.

The only animals that appear to be few in number are large mammals. The largest

animal of the rainforest is thought to be the okapi, “a shy, elusive beast from

west Africa (Nichol 56).” Gorillas, apes, the orang-utan of the Far East,

gibbons, and chimps which can grow to the size of a human are also among the

larger animals in the forest. A wide variety of monkeys including the tiniest

monkeys in the world, the pigmy marmoset, live among the trees in the South

American rainforests (Nichol 61).

One of the rarest primates in the world, the golden lion tamarin, lives

in a very small portion of the rainforest in Brazil. These breathtakingly

beautiful little monkeys resemble golden toys and it is believed that only 150

survive in the wild. Without the rainforest, these precious treasures would be

lost forever (Nichol 61).

Over 100 types of birds including the spix macaw, hoatzin, and a

numerous variety of parrots would be extinct if the rainforests were non-

existent. Many birds of the rainforest appear seasonally, or when the trees

begin to bud. Other rare animals in the rainforest include the Javan rhinos,

capybaras, and the giraffe stag beetle (Nichol 71).

The rainforest has a larger diversity of plants than any other area on

Earth. For example, “a single hectare in Kenya’s Kakamega Forest may host

between 100 and 150 different tree species, compared to only about 10 different

species in a hectare of the forest of North America (

http://www.davesite.com/rainforests/review3.shtml). Many of these plants don’t

appear in any other part of the world. A small portion of these species are the

passion flower, the rambutan, the heliconia flower, and an abundance of hardwood

trees.

For hundreds of thousands of years, indigenous people, or Indians, have

called the rainforest home. They are very knowledgeable about the rainforest

and the secrets it holds. They

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