Rainforests are quickly disappearing in front of us. 60 football pitches of rainforest are lost every minute, which means 31,536,000 football pitches of rainforest are lost every year.  

Rainforests are home to so many varied species, including Goeldi’s monkeys, two-toed sloths, red-footed tortoises, Golden-headed lion tamarin and many more. Half of the animals listed are considered endangered! We must try to lessen this as much as possible, and cutting down their homes will not help. Rainforests are not only used as homes to animals, but also for a variety of trees. As well as this, indigenous people also inhabit it. It plays a key role in their lives by providing them with food and shelter, as well as making medicine from the plants. Around 50 million, indigenous people have been living in harmony with the rainforest as their ancestral territory, we do not have the right to take it away from them! 

Rainforests help regulate the climate and atmosphere. This is because trees are considered water sponges, it is believed rainforests contain over half of the earth's rainwater. The trees in the rainforest are also thought of as the earth's lungs as they hold around 25% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – CO2 is one of the main greenhouse gases, including methane and Nitrous oxide. Some of the CO2 is carbon emissions (refers to the carbon dioxide created by human activity).  

The factors that produce harmful carbon emissions include Transport (14%), Industry (21%), Buildings (6.4%), Agriculture, deforestation, and fires (24%), Electricity and heat production (25%) and other energy (9.6%). Admittedly it is hard for our modern civilization to put a stop to all of this, but by only stopping deforestation, carbon emissions could be reduced by up to 15%! 

The main loss of Amazon rainforests is due to illegal logging. Deforestation is a global problem that affects everyone. Tropical rainforests are being lost at an extremely fast rate from the pressure to convert the trees into modern day needs, such as paper, fuel, timber etc. It is predicted that our rainforests will all be gone in the next 100 years if the current rate of deforestation continues. If that happens, thousands of animal and plant species will forever be lost. There would be an increase in droughts, the global temperature would increase, and many people would lose their homes.  

Here are three straightforward ways you could help save our rainforests: 

1) Thinking about what you buy - make sure it is responsibly sourced. 

2) Do not waste anything - do not throw away things, reuse or recycle them. 

3) Help the forest near you - visit them and take care of them. 

Half of the rainforest has already been destroyed in the last century. Let us try to keep what we have left. Do not let rainforest become history!