The Rainforest is Dying and Nobody Cares

By: AX.C

Everyone is talking about the rainforests and how they need to be saved, but I've realized that no one actually does anything about it. They just sit around watching Netflix and eating Doritos.

People should care about the actual important things in life instead of doing nothing about anything. This is why I want people to know about why rainforests are important and how they’re being destroyed every day and every night.

Rainforests are Important Ecosystems

Rainforests are what some people call carbon sinks. These sinks are very important in this dying world right now. The carbon sinks are the forests themselves because the plants take CO2 and block it from the atmosphere instead of it being released and trapping heat.

Plants and animals aren't useless things; they can even advance medicine. For example, the Bushmaster snake hunts its prey by using its venom that stops the animal’s heart. This venom has been studied and developed to create a medicine for the heart. Every year, millions of people use it to save their lives.

What is Threatening the Rainforests

Agriculture is threatening rainforests the most. First in the process of destroying everything is to cut down the area, but tropical rainforests have few minerals in the soil so the farmers burn the deforested area. This land will soon be unable to grow crops.

This is particularly bad because the soil won’t be able to support much life after the farming process, so the land will be left there and can’t be turned back into what it once was. 

Another thing threatening the rainforests is logging. Logging takes all of the plant life from an area and leaves it empty. This kills the forest and the animals.

How to Fix This Mess

We can fix this failing ecosystem by protecting the very land that’s holding back global warming. The Amazon Rainforest is 50% protected in one way or another. This is not enough, though, because the Amazon has shrunk around 20% since 1960. We need to protect all of the rainforest because just protecting some is clearly not enough to save it. Just look at the Amazon Rainforest for an example.

Another way to protect the rainforests is to stop trying to log every bit of them. People use so much wood. They use it to build houses, create furniture, toilet paper, and to start campfires. We are using too much wood for our own good, so we need to put limits on how much we can log so we don’t clear out entire forests and destroy entire ecosystems even more. 

I can’t do anything about this problem on my own, but I hope that you are more brave and inspired by this article. So go out there and change the world for the better.

Sources:

https://newsela.com/view/ck9noojdh062j0iqjtxgzxiy6/?levelId=ck7ecwsgn0vx914p7lyk3bryg

https://newsela.com/view/ck9noofbs03q30iqj57tdl65u/?levelId=ck7ecvmnj0jh114p7l9lwod90