Environmental activists consider forests as one of the top 5 natural resources on earth. Today we shall look at how wonderful our forests are to us and why we should immediately end its destruction.

There is more to forests than just a massive collection of trees. It is a natural, complex ecosystem made up of a wide variety of trees that support a massive range of life forms.

Apart from trees, forests also include the soils that support the trees, the water bodies that run through them, and even the atmosphere (air) around them. Forests of the world are a natural wonder that humans have sadly taken for granted.

Forests come in many sizes and forms. For example, the piece of land with huge trees and many animals, birds, and water bodies running through it in a part of Kenya can be called a forest. In the same way, the large belt of thick, evergreen trees running from Peru to Brazil (called the Amazon Rain Forest) is also a forest. A good example is the Amazon Rain Forest.

Between 2015 and 2020, the rate of deforestation was estimated at 10 million hectares per year, down from 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s. The area of primary forest worldwide has decreased by over 80 million hectares since 1990

FAO and UNEP. 2020. The State of the World’s Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca8642en

Forests are hugely important for life on earth. This is because it serves as an ecosystem and sustains life for millions of animals, birds, and animals that live in the rivers and streams running through these forests. It also does a lot of good to the atmosphere in climate control, as well as supplying oxygen for human sustenance.

NOTES

The term we use to describe the variety of living things, animals and plants, their living environments and genes is called  Biodiversity. It is believed that the Amazon Forest has the widest biodiversity.

In the next pages, we shall look at the types and importance of forests, the problem of deforestation and its’ effects, as well as what we can do to minimize the consequences.