Help Save The Rainforest

 

All of us here at Eluma feel strongly about doing what we can to help save our planet. So we are partnering with the National Arbor Day Foundation, which is the world's oldest and largest tree-planting organization, to help save our planet’s precious tropical rainforest.  For every 1000 people that download Eluma, we will donate funds to protect 50,000 square feet of rainforest.

 
The Amazon Rainforest is home to the greatest biological treasures on our planet, but tragically, it’s rapidly disappearing. In 1950, 15% of the Earth’s land surface was covered by rainforest; today it’s 6%. The rate of destruction is accelerating; at the current pace the entire Amazon Rainforest could be gone by the year 2050.

Why are the Tropical Rainforests so Important?

Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming
Tropical rainforests act like the lungs of the earth: the trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Destroying the forests upsets the balance, with more carbon dioxide being left in the atmosphere and less oxygen being released. And when tropical rainforests are cleared by burning the trees, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. The earth’s reduced ability to absorb carbon dioxide, and the additional carbon dioxide generated from burning the trees, contributes to the “greenhouse effect,” which causes global warming.
 
It is estimated that one-third of carbon dioxide pollution comes from tropical rainforest destruction. This warming of the atmosphere will also cause problems with the sea levels due to the melting ice caps and expansion of water. Sea levels are rising, and it is estimated that by 2050 sea levels will rise to 1.5 meters, flooding many low-lying areas, leaving 150 million people in countries such as Holland, India and Bangladesh homeless.
 
Home to Half of The World’s Species
The rainforests house over half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plant, animal and insect life.
 
Over 80% of the developed world’s diet originates here, but more importantly, 25% of western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, even though less than 1% of the trees and plants have yet to be tested by scientists! To date, scientists have identified 3,000 plants as having anti-cancer properties, and 70% of those plants are found only in the rainforest. Two drugs obtained from a single rainforest plant, the Madagascar periwinkle, now extinct in the wild due to deforestation of the Madagascar rainforest, increase the chances of survival for children with leukemia from 20 percent to 80 percent.
 
Nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century due to rainforest deforestation. And most medicine men and shamans remaining in the rainforests today are 70 years old or more. Each time a rainforest medicine man dies, it is as if a library has burned down. When a medicine man dies without passing his arts on to the next generation, the tribe and the world loses thousands of years of irreplaceable knowledge about medicinal plants.

The Economics Are Surprising

Some issues have difficult economics. Fortunately, this one does not. Logging concessions in the Amazon are sold for as little as $2 per acre. However, if these renewable and sustainable resources are harvested, the land can yield the land owner $2,400 per acre. Local communities and tribes earn five to ten times more money harvesting medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, and oils than they can earn by chopping down the forest. The economics for preserving and protecting our planet’s precious rainforests are easy.

How We Can Help

One and one-half acres of rainforest are lost every second with tragic consequences for both developing and industrial countries. But the National Arbor Day Foundation has been making a difference. Through their efforts to date, more than two billion square feet of rainforest land has been preserved. The National Arbor Day Foundation provides a multi-faceted approach to saving our planet’s rainforest, including:

• Purchasing and protecting rainforest land so that it cannot be destroyed
• Educating the local community about agricultural practices to enable profitable and sustainable methods to harvest trees without damaging the forest
• Establishing a National Fire Management Policy and extensive fire prevention training for forest managers and park guards
• Creating a market for tourism and products from the region 

 

For every 1,000 people that download Eluma, we will donate funds to protect 50,000 square feet of rainforest, which prevents 350 species of trees and 700 species of higher plants from becoming extinct, and absorbs 1000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
 
"The worst thing that can happen during the 1980s is not energy depletion, economic collapses, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendants are least likely to forgive us for."  

                                                              - Edward O. Wilson, Harvard's Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist.
 
 
For more information on rainforests, click here, or subscribe to the Rainforest collection in Eluma.
 
For more information on how the National Arbor Day Foundation’s efforts are saving the rainforests, click here.