The Importance Of Rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforest contains approximately two-third of the world’s plant and animal species. It has one of the world’s most spectacular ecosystem. The name ‘rain’ forest, indicates that it receives high rain fall throughout the year. Not limited to that, the trees also release water to the atmosphere by transpiration, forming dense clouds that surround the forest. Hence, even on non-raining days, the forest remains warm and humid.

Importance

Rainforests are very important to man-kind for many reasons, most being very straight forward. The closest rainforest might be allocated a few hundred kilometers from us, but we highly benefit from the forest. The Earth is able to survive without human, but not the other way round.

Greenhouse effect

Hence, forest is very important to the man-kind.

Medical benefit

Bioprospecting - research of plants that can be used in foods, medicines, and cosmetics – is a growing industry for the past decade. Researchers have been exploring rainforest’s species to developed new medicines and foods. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that 70 percent of the anti-cancer plants identified so far are rainforest plants.[1]

Many species of the rainforest are still unidentified, hence more new medicines and foods are yet to be discovered. Thus, providing a very profited industry for the man-kind.

Climate

Rainforests regulate global and regional climate-systems. Water is release into the atmosphere, forming clouds, which returns to the ground in the form of rain. When the forest is remove, the water cycle is disrupted, temperatures increase, droughts become more common.

Tropical forests have been described as "the lungs of the Earth" by scientist. The storage and release of carbon of a rainforest is kept in balance. Carbon-dioxide consumed during photosynthesis is equalled by that released when organic matter decays. A standing forest acts as a storage for carbon. On the other hand, when forests are burned, or decay, carbon dioxide is released back into the

As population continues to increase, forest will be cut down to create road and infrastructure to support the population. On top of that, food is also a limited resource to support the population, hence more forests are removed for agriculture purpose.

Despite the society has raise the awareness of deforestation, the rate of deforestation is still on the rise.

Plantation

Another reason of deforestation is plantation, where forest is cleared to replant valuable crops for economic growth. One of which being the palm tree. Many of our daily product contains palm oil. Hence, the demand of palm oil is always high. Palm oil can be produce from palm trees which its fruits are squashed, squeezed and pulped.

Palm oil can be used in food products such as chocolate, bread, cereal and even pizza. It is estimated to cover approximately 33% of the supermarket’s food product. It can further put to use as a biofuel.

Palm oil production is a massive business in both Indonesia and Malaysia. Valuable trees are harvested and the rest are burnt to clear the land for the farming of palm oil. Thus, this two countries obtain the title of ‘World’s Fastest Rainforest Destroyer’ in the Guinness Book of World