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We should all be concerned with saving the rainforest, and we can do our part by making small changes to our lifestyles. If everyone chose to do so, the results would be amazing. Trees offer us beauty and shade of those hot summer afternoons. Trees also help reduce the effects of carbon dioxide. Planting more trees is a very easy way you can help the to preserve the rainforest.

You can help reduce the amount of waste by recycling, especially recycling paper. The number one reason why rainforests are being destroyed is to provide more wood for paper. Another reason is for building homes and businesses. There are plenty of other types of materials you can choose from so that the rainforest can be preserved.

Other products produced from rainforest trees include rubber and lumber. Take a good look at how much of these commodities you are using. Try to limit the use of them to only necessities and look for alternative materials when it comes to luxury items.

Do you drink large amounts of coffee or use spices each time you cook? If so, you can be damaging the rainforests. This is because the demand for coffee and spices are so high areas of the rainforest are being cleared away to grow them.

Americans contribute to 25% of the pollution worldwide. This is due to the fact that they consume more fossils fuels for their vehicles and factories than any other country. There are many changes you can make to cut down the amount of pollution you contribute on a daily basis.

Consider taking public transportation or carpooling to and from work. There are also many great models of hybrid vehicles that can operate for long periods of time on electricity. This is a good investment for the environment as well as to save money on the cost of fuel.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/how-we-can-change-our-lifestyles-to-preserve-the-rainforest-part-1-141982.html

About the Author
Learn about Conservation & Preservation Initiatives at http://www.paradiseearthonline.com/

My job involves a lot of work online, looking for interesting websites, finding articles to get more insight in the current situation of Ecuador. Every now andthen I bump into articles that really open my eyes. They give me new insights on topics I already kind of made my mind up about.

That´s what happened to me today, surfing the web I found an article written by Kurt Glaubitz for Chevron, one of the major oil companies in the world. The article had some interesting paragraphs on the positive impact of Chevron (or actually its daughter Texaco) in Ecuador. For instance on the economical impact of the oil industry in Ecuador:

´From 1972 until 1992, the consortium, of which TexPet (collaboration between Texaco and Petroecuador) wasa minority equity holder, produced more than 1.7 billion barrels of oil from the Oriente. That production generated significant revenue for the country.During those two decades, the consortium contributed about $25 billion inside Ecuador, a figure that represented 50 percent of the country’s gross nationalproduct over that period.´. The economic impact of the oil industry has beenincredible. It has certainly served Ecuador well. Jobs have been created, the government gets huge funds to support the country and the best thing is; the rainforest has hardly been damaged, according to Chevron.

´The consortium’s oil-production activities contributed only minimally to deforestation. The consortium’s area of operations totalled 6,400 acres (about 2,600 hectares). That represents 0.02percent of the 32 million acres (13 million hectares) that comprise the Ecuadorian rain forest, and much of that concession area remained untouched by oil operations.´

Several organisations have found themselves in courtrooms all over the world to ensure the safety of the environment and to preserve the way of living of many indigenous communities. Chevron is, nevertheless, proud to announce that they have been very active in supporting small projects in indigenous communities.

´Texaco Petroleum Co. (TexPet) was actively involved in community activities during itsinvolvement in the oil-producing consortium in Ecuador, as well as during theperiod it was managing the remediation program. The company made financial contributions to numerous hospitals and clinics and to projects that brought potable water to economically depressed areas of the Oriente. The company also provided funding to assist Ecuadorian recipients of Fulbright scholarships to teach abroad.´

So you might ask; ´what’s wrong with this picture?´.

Well, there are a few side effects to the contribution of Texaco in Ecuador. Especially related to small communities inthe rainforest and the rainforest itself. My work has taken me to small communities in the rainforest. One of these communities is called Sumak Sacha.

Sumak Sacha is a small indigenous community not too far away from Tena. Sumak Sacha´s location is absolutely breathtaking. In the middle of the rainforest right next to the river Rio Napo it is an incredible place to visit. Unfortunately there was something more than just rainforest in the area. Sumak Sacha is located right on top of a big oilfield. Texaco found out about this and decided to puta big oil refinery right next to this small village. Obviously this had great impact on the lives of the people from Sumak Sacha. Texaco obviously knew thatthey had to make some concessions to the community. They agreed to pay a yearly contribution of $900,00 USD to compensate for the inconvenience.

A promise was made to the community that jobs would be offered to the members of community as well.

All of these promises were lived up to by the multibillion company. The $900,00 USD was payed yearly and jobs were offered.

Unfortunately the community was not yet aware of all of the negative impacts of the Texaco intrusion in their way of life.

At thismoment dozens of trucks are driving through the small town daily to get to the riverside. Dumping their waste in the Rio Napo has already caused the soil tobe polluted, as well as the river. Pollution of the river goes on for miles downstream affecting the way of life of several other communities in the area. The community is unable to grow crops on their land due to the pollution of the soil. The jobs offered to the community members by Texaco are scarce and the company pays terrible wages, even for Ecuadorean standards.

The financial contribution to Ecuador is enormous and deforestation due to the presence of the oil companies is relatively small. Texaco has certainlyfinancially contributed a lot to the development of the country, but none of this justifies the exploitation and deceit of small indigenous communities. Neither does this justify the pollution of rivers like the Rio Napo and its surrounding area.

Articles like the one by Kurt Glaubitz for Chevron open my eyes. Not about what they mention, but about what they fail to mention.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/causes-and-organizations-articles/oil-companies-saving-the-rainforest-472467.html

About the Author

Martijn van Vreeden is the founder of Moving Ecuador, a non profit web intitiative to promote responsible travel and volunteering in Ecuador.

A sunset means different things to different people. I am told that some of the world’s major industrial cities with lots of smog have spectacular sunsets because of all the pollution that reflects in the air. All I know is that Fiji has naturally spectacular sunsets. In my office, when we notice the lights changing near sunset, me and some of the mates drive fast down to the seawall to watch the sun fade off into night. But on this occasion, I had no sense of urgency for a typical sunset at Koro Sun. I was just able to appreciate Mother Nature at her purest moment. I wondered if Mother Nature feels like Aerosmith on some days and sings "Don’t wanna close my eyes, don’t wanna fall asleep, cause I miss you baby and I don’t wanna miss a thing." Website www.fijime.com Blog http

Source: YouTube

Ever since recycling of goods became a widespread, commercial enterprise, sceptics have hailed the process as a worthless enterprise. Many argue that the emissions from recycling are greater than that of producing virgin paper, or that the emissions from the transportation of recycled goods outweigh the carbon saved by not cutting down trees. However, research shows that while the early days of recycling presented fairly clunky, emission-heavy recycling processes, advances in technology have improved and streamlined the methods used to recycled materials. Data from the Bureau of International Recycling shows that producing paper via the recycling route entails 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution, although the organisation does not say how it reached this figure or what is taken into account.

Regardless of continuing arguments about whether trucks carrying logs produce more CO2 than trucks carrying recycled paper or whether materials recycled in China produce more gases than virgin products made in the UK, a highly informative article by Daniel Howden of The Independent explains why we are missing the bigger picture. In order to slow the change in climate and regulate the ever more extreme weather patterns, he says we need to turn our eyes to the rainforests. According to Howden, while the destruction of the world’s rainforests is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change, global leaders are turning a blind eye to the crisis of worldwide deforestation.

Of course, trees are not only felled to make paper. Areas are also cleared for cattle grazing, and agriculture, including the growth of palm oil and ostensibly health-promoting acai berries to fulfil the surge in demand. However, without the demand for wood, the act of clearing rainforests would be far less lucrative.

The rainforests, the majority of which are situated in South America and Indonesia, form a protection cooling band around the Earth’s equator as well as generating the bulk of the rainfall worldwide. With the annual area of deforestation amounting to 50 million acres – or an area the size of England, Wales and Scotland, the rainforests now cover less than 7% of the earth. However, the remaining forest is calculated to contain 1,000 billion tons of carbon, or double what is already in the atmosphere.

The article cites a report published by the Global Canopy Programme (GPC), an alliance of leading rainforest scientists, which states that the emission of greenhouse gases as a result of the “rampant slashing and burning” of these tropical forests is second only to the energy sector. According to Howden, deforestation in the next 24 hours will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers, he argues, is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change.

Of course, some paper products now come from sustainable forests. But much of it does not. Re-growing trees in sustainable forests is a slow process and therefore, it is often deemed quicker and cheaper to reap wood from virgin forests. However, the most effective way to reduce the demand for paper is to recycle it. Howden’s article demonstrates that the arguments regarding the amount of gases emitted during the recycling process are secondary to the urgent need to halt the deforestation. As the GCP’s report concludes: “If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change.”

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/still-unsure-of-the-benefits-of-recyling-look-to-the-rainforests-4053083.html

About the Author

Alice Watkyn writes for The Tiny Box company, the UK’s only supplier of recycled and recyclable packaging. See our website for a great range of recycled gift boxes, jewellery boxes and more.

Rainforests are the dynamic engine of the Earth’s biosphere; they fix carbon from the atmosphere, and the aspiration of plants in the rain forests produce nearly 10% of the oxygen we need to live (over 70% of the oxygen is generated by algae and plankton on the world’s oceans). They act as filters, pulling pollutants out of the air and fixing minerals into the soil, and help stem the tide of soil erosion; they are dynamic, and vividly alive, and critical to the life expectancy of our planet.

The biological diversity of tropical rain forests is staggering. Of the roughly 1.9 million named land species native to planet earth, over two thirds of them are found in tropical rain forests, ranging from Asia to South America to Africa, and places in between. 95% of the beneficial plants and plant compounds used for medicine, cosmetics and more are found in tropical rain forests, and this diversity is one of the great treasures of the world.

And it’s being lost, and lost rapidly, due to development and encroachment by urban areas. 30 years ago, rain forests covered 14% of the land area of the earth. It’s now under 6% and shrinking rapidly. At the current rate of deforestation, the last rain forest could be cut down by the 2040s.

There are several layers of impact to the loss of rainforest terrain and biomes. The first is simply conservation – when the last member of an animal species dies, that species has gone extinct. There is a strong emotional appeal to preserving wildlife, preserving wild lands, is very important to people. The second is climactic. Developing rain forest into cattle lands or crop lands leads to desertification, because of the shift in rainfall patterns and the fact that rainforest ecosystems keep most of the nutrients in plants, rather than the soil. The last impact is economic and medical; the rainforests are reservoirs of ecological diversity, and potentially domesticable plants and animals. Major research goes into finding plants and plant compounds that are tied to medical advances and present in plants and animals in the rainforest.

Rainforest deforestation impacts the planet, local and global economies. We’re going to focus on the local changes, and work from there, up the chain of events and causality. The typical cycle is that rain forest lands get clear cut and used for crop lands, then cattle grazing lands when the crops fail, then abandoned (or used for housing if conveniently located), when even grazing lands fail. This is part of a vicious cycle – most of the nutrients in a rain forest biome are tied in the living organisms, not the soil itself. When they’re clear cut, and burned, most of the resulting land is poor for agricultural use, low in phosphorus and nitrates, with soil that will blow away when the first wind storm hits. Soil exhaustion and salinization from over irrigation makes things even worse. This is, in many ways, analogous to strip-mining the soil, much as one would strip mine for copper or iron ore.

In an active and thriving rain forest, minerals and nutrients cycle quickly. When the rain forest is chopped down, those nutrients aren’t there any more. They’re shipped off as building materials or simply burned to clear the land. When grasses are seeded for cattle ranching, the soil is already starting depleted, and gets more so quickly. Eventually, the grass gets overgrazed, winds and rains come down and wash the soil into estuaries, and the process cycles even faster.

Erosion from deforestation is an attendant problem. The cover provided by the rain forest canopy keeps the tropical sunlight from baking the moisture out of the soils, and the aspiration of the plants helps capture rain clouds and seed clouds for rain. After the forest has been cleared, rainfall drops considerably. The tropical rain forest is a perfect example of a system where the combination of elements creates a whole greater than the sum of the parts.

There are several programs in place to try to preserve rain forests; the problems come from the fact that, in terms of local economics, it’s hard to convince a farmer that clearing more land to raise more crops and make more money is a losing proposition compared to leaving the rain forest in place as a refuge for vermin and predators. Trying to preserve islands of rainforest land hasn’t worked; the minimum area for viable rainforest biomes is around one hundred square miles, and most of the island experiments have been a tenth of that or less. Now, larger non governmental organizations are trying to buy up large tracts of rainforest land to keep as nature preserves, or to use as a basis for ecological tourism as a revenue stream to offset land use taxes, and the economic incentives for clear cutting.

Some efforts are being put in place to teach local farmers to work with the rain forest ecosystem rather than competing with it, using clearings in the rain forest for garden plots, and attempting to harvest the bounty of the rainforest directly. These have met a great deal of resistance because of the difficulties in balancing immediate short term profit with long term sustainability.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/nature-articles/rainforests-way-more-than-just-monkeys-and-parrots-140664.html

About the Author

Learn about Preservation of Endangered Rainforest Birds & Plant Species at http://www.paradiseearthonline.com

PlEASE READ THIS ALL IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT Everyone go on reforestation websites and donate to stop cutting down rainforest trees in the amazon because scientists say in forty or fifty years the amazon will be gone and air will become toxic because of pollution and we will die and for anyone who wants to ignore this I’ll be talking to u in forty or fifty years and well see how I’m right

Source: YouTube

We should all be concerned with saving the rainforest, and we can do our part by making small changes to our lifestyles. If everyone chose to do so, the results would be amazing. Trees offer us beauty and shade of those hot summer afternoons. Trees also help reduce the effects of carbon dioxide. Planting more trees is a very easy way you can help the to preserve the rainforest.

You can help reduce the amount of waste by recycling, especially recycling paper. The number one reason why rainforests are being destroyed is to provide more wood for paper. Another reason is for building homes and businesses. There are plenty of other types of materials you can choose from so that the rainforest can be preserved.

Other products produced from rainforest trees include rubber and lumber. Take a good look at how much of these commodities you are using. Try to limit the use of them to only necessities and look for alternative materials when it comes to luxury items.

Do you drink large amounts of coffee or use spices each time you cook? If so, you can be damaging the rainforests. This is because the demand for coffee and spices are so high areas of the rainforest are being cleared away to grow them.

Americans contribute to 25% of the pollution worldwide. This is due to the fact that they consume more fossils fuels for their vehicles and factories than any other country. There are many changes you can make to cut down the amount of pollution you contribute on a daily basis.

Consider taking public transportation or carpooling to and from work. There are also many great models of hybrid vehicles that can operate for long periods of time on electricity. This is a good investment for the environment as well as to save money on the cost of fuel.

Each animal in the rainforest is important to the balance of its ecosystem. Make sure you report any illegal hunting in the rainforests as well as the illegal sell of animals that are removed from that natural habitat and sold as pets. The most common ones are parrots and iguanas.

Individuals need to realize that purchasing the parts of poached animals in the rainforest or these live pets encourages that behavior to continue. If we all do our part to make sure there is no market for such activities, then the financial motivation for doing so would be gone.

Write letters to Congress to encourage the government to place stricter laws on those who hunt illegally and remove animals illegally from the rainforest. You also need to write to encourage them to restrict how much land in the rainforest a company can clear as well as require them to plant new trees in the location afterwards.

Children need to be taught from a very early age just how important the rainforest is to our well being. They need to learn what they can do to protect the rainforest as well as to appreciate how it helps keep the air clean, affects our water cycles, and affects the climate around the world.

Children need to be educated both at home and at school. With the rainforests being completely cleared away at the rate of 6,000 acres per hour, we need to make some serious changes. Taking the right steps in our own lives and teaching our children to do the same will help ensure the rainforests and the animals that have a home there are able to survive for future generations.

The rainforests are essential to our well being. The trees produce oxygen that we need to breathe. They also help keep the air clean, and we need that due to the chemicals, emissions, and pollution we put into our environment.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/causes-and-organizations-articles/how-we-can-change-our-lifestyles-to-preserve-the-rainforest-140665.html

About the Author

Learn about Conservation & Preservation Initiatives at http://www.paradiseearthonline.com/