rainforest facts and figures

Rainforest Facts 🏞️

List of Alarming Rainforest Facts & Information 🏞️

Are you ready for terrible rainforest facts and news? The world’s tropical rainforest areas are constantly shrinking. Approximately 35 soccer fields of rainforest are cleared every minute. That makes 2,100 soccer fields an hour or over 50,000 a day. And all this just to harvest non-sustainable luxury woods, clear grazing areas for fast-food cattle, or to cultivate palm oil. We are destroying the very basis of our life for things the world does not need. How stupid are we human beings? Have we learned nothing or will we one day stop eating at burger joints and fast food chains or avoid products with palm oil? We live in hope.

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The Rainforest 🏞️ Rainforest Facts & Statistics
Total area of rainforest  Approximately 5,800,000 square miles (15 million km2) of land area on the planet are rainforest. That’s less than 2% of the total surface area of our planet and around 7% of the useable land surface, excluding ice areas. It was 17% just 50 years ago!
Distribution There are three major rainforest regions on earth:
  • South America: 8 million km2 (3,088,817 mi2) rainforest
  • Congo Basin: 3 million km2 (1,158,306 mi2) rainforest
  • Southeast Asia:  2.4 million km2 (926,645 mi2) rainforest.
Other rainforest areas There are also rainforests in northern Australia, India, Madagascar and in all the countries of Central America as well as Cuba, Jamaica and the Bahamas.
Deforestation per year About 6 million hectares or 23,166 square miles are lost EVERY YEAR. That’s around the size of the state of West Virginia or mainland Scotland.
Clearance per minute An area of rainforest the size of roughly 35 soccer fields is cleared every minute.
Why are the rainforests being cleared? There are 4 main reasons:
  • Logging of tropical hardwoods for furniture etc.
  • Clearing pasture areas to rear fast-food beef
  • Cultivation of fodder (soy) for fast-food factory farming
  • Cultivation of so-called bio-fuels such as palm oil.
Consequences of the destruction
  • Climate change, with all its consequences – you’ve noticed the extreme weather right?
  • Disruption of ocean currents and water cycles
  • Extinction of millions of plant and animal species
  • Displacement of indigenous peoples, animals and their native habitat.
Largest rainforest The Amazon basin in Brazil, with approximately 1,351,357 square miles (3.5 million mi2)
Precipitation There is little to no rain in the dry season, and 2000 – 4000 mm of rain (about 3 times as much as in the UK) in the rainy season. The rainforest knows only two seasons: the rainy season and the dry season.
Humidity At least 70 %, but usually about 90 %.
Average temperature Around 25° C or 77° F.
Plants More than 1000 plants grow on in every 20 square metre or 24 square yards.
Tree species Approximately 120 different species per hectare or 2.5 acres.
Bird diversity 8600 different species of birds inhabit the rainforest.
Fish diversity 3000 species live in the Amazon alone, compared to just 60 in European rivers.
Shady spot Only 2% of sunlight reaches the forest floor.
Products from the Rainforest Chocolate, sugar and gum.
See also: Geographical Records of our world… | How to ID That Tree…

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