About this site
Providing tropical forest news, statistics, photos, and information, rainforests.mongabay.com is the world's most popular rainforest site. [more]
Rainforest on the island of Borneo
Section 1:
TROPICAL RAINFORESTS OF THE WORLD
Tropical rainforests are a world
like none other; and their importance to the global ecosystem and human
existence is paramount. Unparalleled in terms of their biological diversity,
tropical rainforests are a natural reservoir of genetic diversity which
offers a rich source of medicinal plants, high-yield foods,
and a myriad of other useful forest products. They are an important
habitat for migratory animals and sustain as much as 50 percent of the species on Earth, as well as a number of
diverse and unique indigenous cultures. Tropical rainforests play an
elemental role in regulating global weather in addition to maintaining
regular rainfall, while buffering against floods, droughts, and erosion.
They store vast quantities of carbon, while producing a significant
amount of the world's oxygen.
Despite their monumental role, tropical forests are restricted to the
small land area between the latitudes 22.5° North and 22.5° South
of the equator, or in other words between the Tropic of Capricorn
and the Tropic of Cancer. Since the majority of Earth's land is located
north of the tropics, rainforests are naturally limited to a relatively
small area.
Tropical rainforests, like so many other natural places, are a scarce
resource in the 21st century. The vast swaths of
forest, swamp, desert, and savanna that carpeted Earth's land surface
a mere five generations ago have been reduced to scattered fragments;
today, more than two-thirds of the world's tropical rainforests exist
as fragmented remnants. Just a few thousand years ago, tropical rainforests
covered as much as 12 percent of the Earth’s land surface, or about 6 million square miles (15.5 million square km),
but today less than 5 percent of Earth's land is covered with
these forests (about 2.41 million square miles or 625 million hectares).
The largest unbroken stretch of rainforest is found in the Amazon river
basin of South America. Over half of this forest lies in Brazil, which
holds about one-third of the world's remaining tropical rainforests.
Another 20 percent of the world's remaining rainforest exists
in Indonesia and Congo Basin, while the balance of the world's rainforests
are scattered around the globe in tropical regions.
The global distribution of tropical rainforests can be broken up into
four biogeographical realms based roughly on four forested continental
regions: the Ethiopian or Afrotropical, the Australiasian or Australian,
the Oriental or Indomalayan/Asian, and the Neotropical.
After acquittal, fear of open season on activists in the Amazon rainforest
(5/14/2008) Bishop Flavio Giovenale was crushed by the acquittal last week of a rancher accused of ordering the killing of a crusading American nun — and not just because he admired Dorothy Stang. Giovenale, who spends much of his time battling child prostitution, police corruption and drug abuse, fears the verdict means it's open season again on activists in the Amazon jungle state of Para.
Convicted nun-killer freed in the Brazilian Amazon
(5/14/2008) Charges against a Brazilian rancher convicted of arranging the 2005 murder of a 73-year-old American nun in the Amazon rainforest have been dismissed.
