Day 3: What are forests good for?

Today I decided to learn a bit about the forests I claim to love. I’ve realised that although I know they are valuable, I still know so little about them.

I began on the WWF website, which has resources for schools, and discovered that there are three main types: tropical, deciduous and boreal, spread in linear patches all across the world from the tropics to the poles. This very simplified explanation actually hides more than 8 specified types of forest. Each has a carefully maintained ecosystem of incredibly diverse interdependence and I found myself wishing we could truly learn from them how to live alongside each other using as differences as strengths.

A beautiful model of collaboration is one benefit, but there are so many I had to struggle to choose which ones I chose to share. Forests are: 

~ 300 million people’s homes

~ Regulators of the water, soil, carbon and oxygen cycles

~ Where 25% of our medicines come from

~ Producers of rope, linen, cosmetics, food, soap, shelter, even tattoos! 

~ Defined 800 different ways

~ where 80% of species live

~ a source of income for 1 billion people

~ important in many religions, cultures and wellbeing

~ protection for minorities, especially in food provision

~ often the only place a species lives

In fact, in some parts of the Amazon, a species may have evolved for one particular tree, or in one particular square km and be found nowhere else in the world!

I know this doesn’t even start to show their value, but I come away from my research awed by just how dependent we are on forests. We cannot afford to lose them – I cannot imagine a life without those «services» forests provide for free.

Here are my many references, for anyone who wants to know more:

https://sustainabletravel.org/14-reasons-why-forests-are-important/

https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/forests_practice/importance_forests/

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/7-reasons-to-save-the-rainforest/

http://thespiritscience.net/2016/07/15/10-crucial-reasons-why-we-need-to-keep-our-forests-safe/

https://gridarendal-website-live.s3.amazonaws.com/production/documents/:s_document/218/original/vital_forest_graphics.pdf?1486726408

https://www.sidmartinbio.org/how-do-forests-provide-medicine/

https://www.cifor.org/feature/foodfromforest/

https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-01/Our_Planet_ourforests_jungles.pdf