Dawso's Blog What Goes On In My World… 

Hi!

I wrote this for an essay competition. Here is it…

Imagine, you are walking through a rainforest, your feet crunching down on the fresh foliage, your eyes can’t be taken off this one amazing creature that you have never seen before in your life, the air as fresh and crisp as can be and as you get to the clearing, you think What has man done? According to Rainforest Action Network, every second we loose two football fields worth of Rainforest. This is disgraceful! Rainforests are incredibly important to humans! There is not a doubt that they should be preserved.

More than half of the world’s plant and animal species live in rainforests and some animals can only be found in rainforests. This means that if they are destroyed, these incredible animals will lose their homes. In every single environment in the world, plants and animals depend on each other for food, shelter, protection and reproduction. The health and survival of individual species depends on the health and survival of other species and the environment as a whole. The complicated ecosystem can be thrown out of balance when one of the parts is threatened or one of the species becomes extinct. These plants and animals are such a vital part of the wildlife in our world and if we loose the rainforest we will lose these animals.

At the rate that the rainforests are being destroyed, so are these animals and plants. Scientists say that we are losing 137 plant and animal species due to deforestation, everyday. If we preserve our rainforests these numbers will surely drop!  The plants and animals are such an advantage of the rainforests! The fact that we can see animals in rainforests and nowhere else is amazing!

Rainforests provide us with so much too. Some of these resources can be grown elsewhere, but if we loose the rainforest we would loose a big supply of these things. There are so many different resources that rainforests provide. The main things that they provide us with are food, medical supplies and fibers for furniture. Some of the fruit that rainforests provide us with are avocado, bananas and papaya. Rainforests provide us with cocoa beans for coffee and chocolate! They provide us with many other foods such as vanilla, cinnamon and nuts come from rainforests as well. Rainforests also provide us with extremely important medicines,

such as Curare, which is a muscle relaxant for when you go into surgery, Diogenes which is a medication for asthma treatments and  arthritis, they also provide us with steroids. The rainforest sadly provides us with wood such as teak, rosewood and Mahogany. The rainforest also provides us with many different fibers, which we use to make furniture items such as rope. If we preserved the rainforest, we would have a promising supply of resources.

One of the most important resources of the rainforest is the oxygen it produces. Did you know that 20% of the worlds oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest. Roughly 40% of the world’s oxygen is produced in Rainforests. This is certainly one of the most important purposes of a rainforest, as it keeps us alive! Imagine if suddenly 40% of the world’s oxygen suddenly vanished.  If we preserved our rainforests, the effect that it would have on some people is astonishing.

There are six main reasons of why rainforests are being destroyed. The biggest reason is cattle farming. This applies especially in South East Asian rainforests. Many people cut down rainforests to build cattle farms. This is pointless as the soil isn’t very good. They find themselves having to move every 4-5 years. The second reason is for wood and timber for making fires. Many people cut down trees just to make fires. They also cut down wood and timber to make furniture, or to sell. The third reason is that the pulp is used to create paper. Paper is needed in many cases but not in all. There is so much paper wasted today! Paper is wasted on many things such as the newspaper. The newspaper contains over 100 big pieces of paper. The newspaper is read and then thrown out. People then get a new one the next day! Paper is such a big waste and we really shouldn’t be murdering the rainforests for it. The fourth reason is for road construction. There are many roads being built throughout rainforests for tourists and suppliers. A few extra hours driving around wouldn’t hurt, considering rainforests are being cut down, just for roads. Another reason that rainforests are cut down is for animals. People hunt the animals to eat, sell, take to a zoo or country, which don’t have the animal, or to use the parts such as skin or teeth. This is horrible and cruel! The final reason is for the extraction of minerals and energy. This is very sad. Although minerals and energy are incredibly important, so are the rainforests. We waste so much electricity! Every time you leave that light on, just think of the potential danger that you have caused to the rainforests!

How would we preserve the rainforest? The first two things that we could do are incredibly simple. We could all cut down on our paper and electricity use! Think of every time you have left the electric socket on, or that light on, or thrown out a piece of paper because it had a little mark on it. We could cut down on our use of many things, so easily and protect the rainforests whilst we are at it. Another thing that we could do is ban cattle ranching in the rainforest. Cattle ranching as I have said, is one of the biggest reasons rainforests are being cut down. There is certainly no need to cut down and waste all of the valuables that rainforests offer for cattle!

There are so many resources and amazing things that rainforests provide us! There is no doubt that we should preserve these amazing rainforests! Rainforests provide us with oxygen, food, medical supplies, thousands of species that can’t be seen anywhere else and the beautiful sceneries. Mankind should try every single thing in there power to keep these amazing rainforests!

Dawso xox