Wildlife conservation is imperative in saving the rainforest, it’s environment, and the integrity of its ecosystem which is a complex and interwoven system.

Over half the world’s species of wildlife live in the rainforest which is an environment that has been evolving for  55+ million years. This makes for biodiversity that is unknown on this scale in any other environment and the reason wildlife in the rainforest has the greatest gene pool of any place on the planet.

The Amazon rainforest is an environment that is home to an amazing array of wildlife. There are over 300 different mammals including jaguars, cougars, squirrel monkeys, and even two types of freshwater dolphins that live in the Amazon river. There are more than 3000 species of freshwater fish in the Amazon rainforest and a single pond in Brazil has more species than in all the rivers in Europe.  In the African rainforest a four square mile environment could contain up to 400 species of birds including parrots, macaws and hornbills and Peru has 1300 species of butterflies. Wildlife in the rainforest is still diverse and plentiful, thanks to current acts of environmental conservation, and species continue to thrive in each layer of the rainforest.

The forest floor is the first layer of the rainforest and it can be a particularly dark environment because the tops of the trees, the canopy, blocks up to ninety eight percent of the sunlight. This makes the rainforest floor dark and humid where old foliage decomposes and is recycled into a nutrient rich soil.  Wildlife in this type of environment consists of creeping, crawling bugs, spiders, worms and insects. This is the perfect environment for a tarantula and it’s predator, the tarantula wasp, which paralyzes the tarantula with her stings, drags it back to her hole, then lays her eggs on it giving her babies a ready-made meal with they hatch. Funnel web spiders, whose body alone can be up to 2” long, can catch and eat small birds.  Larger wildlife such as jaguars, tigers, elephants and gorillas also live on the rainforest floor. These larger animals greatly feel the effects of the elimination of their habitat and the changing environment around them. They naturally require more room to roam, hunt and mate but the rapid rate of deforestation is displacing these animals leading to diminished herds despite conservation efforts to save the rainforest.

Wildlife such as reptiles and amphibians manage to live in both the rainforest floor and the understory. The understory is the layer of the rainforest between the floor and the canopy. There is slightly more light here so the leaves are broad but the air is still hot and damp environment, so it’s a perfect place for a poison dart frog to rest on a leaf or a chameleon to sun itself on a branch. Snakes such as king cobras, pythons or boa constrictor could be curled up in a tree in the understory or sliding across forest floor.  Other wildlife, such as butterflies, hummingbirds, bats and numerous insects are also predominantly found in the rainforest understory.

The most magical environment and well known layer of the rainforest is the canopy. The wildlife here is abundant and remarkable. The trees stretch out along the skyline high in the air, sometimes more than 100 feet. The rainforest is dryer and warmer up here which makes it a perfect environment for the sixty to ninety percent of wildlife which can be found in the canopy. The leaves can be so thick it is hard to see more than a few feet which means animals must adapt by using loud calls to communicate and swinging or jumping from tree to tree. Spider monkeys have disproportionately long limbs with gives them an advantage in this environment because they can swing from branch to branch high off the ground. Howler monkeys are some of the loudest wildlife in the rainforest and they can be clearly heard 20 miles away.  Birds flourish in the canopy.  Toucans hollow out trees to live in and parrots and cockatoos squawk and search for seeds.

The last layer of the rainforest is called the emergent layer and the environment here is  comprised of super tall trees that have grown above the canopy. The emergent layer gets more sun than any other area and the trees can be two hundred or even three hundred feet tall. Wildlife in this part of the rainforest is limited. There are some monkeys, like the black and white Columbus Monkey in Africa, but by the time we reach this layer the wildlife is basically limited to birds and butterflies because they have the ability to fly from tree to tree.

Jaguars, cougars, pumas, toucans, spider monkeys and howler monkeys are all a part of the rainforests endangered wildlife. In fact, 35 different species of animals become extinct in the rainforest every single day. Despite current environmental conservation efforts, numbers like these show us that not enough is being done. With their habitat being deforested and poachers bringing certain animals to near extinction the fight to save the rainforest and its wildlife becomes even more urgent and important. Support environment and wildlife conservation in the rainforest.

Environmental conservation efforts to save the rainforest

Conservation and human rights groups are trying desperately to change the current path of Africa’s rainforest destruction. The remaining rainforest in Africa is at great risk. The environment here is being deforested at an alarming rate.

What’s left lies in Central Africa’s Congo Basin which spans six nations but the DRC or Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest and most widely referenced.  Logging is especially destructive to the rainforest’s environment and is one of the largest contributors to deforestation. Timber industries are buying up Africa’s rainforest under the guise of bringing money to the local economy and enacting conservation efforts but the money never reaches the people and the land is usually completely deforested. According to the World Bank, an international conservation agency, not a single tax dollar from the logging companies reached the local communities or went to benefit the environment between 2003 and 2006. These companies (most of which are European) come in and promise schools, hospitals and infrastructure. The locals sign away their rights to the rainforest but the corporate promises never materialize. Not only do the locals not receive monetary compensation they also loose their right to the land and the rainforest they live on is destroyed. What makes this situation worse is the authorities side with the logging companies leaving the locals with absolutely no recourse. Currently, 123 million acres of rainforest in the DRC are owned by logging companies. This means an area the size of Spain will be destroyed and deforested. 40 million of the 60 million people that live in the DRC rely on the rainforest for essential food and medicine. If we do not conserve the African rainforest and logging is allowed to continue at its current rate the locals will soon be left with nothing and their environment will be destroyed.

Aside from the loss of pristine rainforest and majestic wildlife there are global environmental repercussions from the lack of conservation and rapid deforestation of the African rainforest. Carbon dioxide, which comes from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, damage our atmosphere, alter the environment and initiates global warming. The rainforests lush tropical vegetation stores these CO2 emissions acting as a carbon sink. In fact, the rainforest in Africa’s DRC is the worlds fourth largest carbon reservoir which makes this country an important player in controlling our greenhouse emissions. However, if the current rate of deforestation is allowed to continue it could have devastating effects on our environment. The global emissions from tropical rainforest deforestation contribute twenty five percent of all human induced CO2 emissions the atmosphere. Deforestation in Africa’s DRC alone will release a total of 34.4 billion tons of CO2 into the environment by the year 2050 if deforestation continues at its current rate.

This is a number the entire world should be concerned about which means saving the rainforest in Africa from deforestation needs to be a global issue and we all need to participate in the conservation efforts to preserve this environment for the health of our entire planet.

In one of the more horrific poaching episodes 200 elephants were slaughtered in Cameroon Africa during the first quarter of January 2012. Bouba N’Djida, a conservation reserve, was home to some 400 elephants, now only half the herd remains. Poachers from Chad and the Sudan massacred these elephants for their tusks and the money China is willing to pay for them. China’s commercial market for ivory gives the financial incentive for the mass slaughter of these nearly extinct animals. Cameroons Black Rhino was another example of what can happen as a result of the loss of habitat and poaching as it became extinct in 2011. These rhinos were hunted for their horns and their believed medicinal value in China.
The number one threat to the endangered Chimpanzee is poaching. They are hunted for their valuable bush meat. Poachers slaughtered the Chimp to near extinction killing 90% of their population over the past twenty years. Only about 200,000 Chimps remain in Africa. Once poachers have killed the adult Chimps in a community they will hold the baby chimps captive selling them to zoos and circuses where they are forced to perform. Chimps are an extremely intelligent animal and this captivity is like torture to them, like prison.

We need to save the rainforest from poachers who have a complete lack of regard for the wildlife and the environment they live in. They kill these animals inhumanly wiping out entire herds and leaving babies without mothers unable to fend for themselves. If we can eliminate the market for highly priced bush meats and tusks we can eliminate the financial gain for poachers. Conservation efforts are already in place but poachers find the financial gain outweighs the risk.This will not only take changes in legislation but changes in world culture, but saving the rainforest and the rainforest animals is a global responsibility.

between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and it has the most extensive and diverse rainforest in all of Asia. Extreme deforestation has had disastrous environmental effects both locally and globally despite worldwide efforts to strengthen the environmental laws, which really didn’t exist prior to 1998. Between 1990 and 2005 over 69 million acres of Indonesian rainforest was degraded and destroyed.  Indonesia is responsible for approximately five percent of the global greenhouse emissions, which makes it the third largest emitter of CO2 behind China and the United States. Eighty percent of Indonesia’s greenhouse emissions stem from deforestation.

Indonesia is one of the largest producers of timber in the world but much of it is illegal. According to the United Nations Environmental Program over seventy percent of the logging here is illegal logging. Mining and lumber mills have polluted the rivers. Degraded land has altered the river flows and created soil erosion. This destruction is especially harmful to the locals because approximately 70 million of them live near the rainforest and, in one way or another, depend on the rainforest for their livelihood. Illegal logging costs the government 2 billion US dollars annually in missed tax revenue and this is money that could be funneled back to the people of the country.

Big business has great public relations agencies and catchy tag lines telling locals and conservationists they want to save the rainforest and limit their environmental impact but in reality they come into Indonesia pillaging the rainforest of its natural resources and permanently destroying the environment in its wake. Asia Pulp and Paper, or APP for short, produces toilet paper and other paper products. It’s a commonly used brand in hotels and restaurants on track to become the world’s largest producer of paper in the next few years. APP’s plant in the Sumatran Rainforest has decimated over twelve million acres of pristine rainforest which was home to wildlife such as Orangutans, Tigers and Elephants all on the verge of extinction. The destruction of their habitat  has dwindled the herds and now there are only 100 Oranutans, 100 Sumatran Tigers and 40-50 Elephants left. APP is encroaching on their territory leaving them no room to hunt or breed. APP’s growth and disregard for the environment is creating a wealth of destruction in its path.

As of 2009 Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil which is used in many standard household products such as vegetable oil, chocolate, cream cheese and even cosmetics. The Indonesia rainforest is being cleared to farm palm oil plantations. Much of the expansion is occurring on Indonesia’s peat lands which are a swampy wetlands full of rich organic material responsible for storing 37.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide. As the plantation owners dry and burn the peatlands huge amounts of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. 24 million acres of peatlands have already been deforested. At this rate the peatlands won’t last long as deforestation is swift and rampant. Palm oil plantations are also known for their human rights abuses. In 2011 the Wilmar Group Plantation worked with the local police to evict locals out of their homes in what turned out to be a successful effort to take the land to expand their plantation. They went through villages threatening people at gunpoint to remove them from their huts. Once they were out, plantation staff used bulldozers to roll over and crush their properties along with any belongings in them. With the local police aiding and abetting in the atrocities the locals truly had nowhere to go.  The actions of the Wilmar Group were illegal, immoral and reprehensible in nature.

Saving the rainforest in Indonesia will require a global effort. The companies who destroy the environment, kill the wildlife and hurt the people need to be held accountable for their actions. Conservation laws need to be strengthened then enforced and this can only occur with support from the local government. It’s in their best interest to save the rainforest here. It’s in everyone’s best interest to save the rainforest here.

In the rainforest, animals can flourish, which creates biodiversity unknown on this scale in any other environment. Over half the world’s species of
animals call the rainforest home which gives the rainforest the greatest gene pool of any place on the planet. For instance, a rainforest preserve in Peru is home to more species of birds than the entire United States. And there are more species of fish in a single pond in Brazil than in all the rivers of Europe. Rainforest animals can be extremely different from each other, as if they lived in different worlds. This is because the four layers of the rainforest are so unique each layer is like its own world.

The forest floor can be particularly dark because the tops of the trees, called the canopy, block up to ninety eight percent of the sunlight. This means a huge variety of, bugs, beetles, snakes and other creepy crawly creatures live here. There are larger animals that live on the forest floor such as anteaters and wild pigs that eat the bugs, insects and plants for survival.  But it’s the larger, more majestic animals such as jaguars, tigers and elephants that not only capture people’s curiosity but face being hunted by poachers. Save The Rainforest is particularly concerned some of them are becoming extinct despite global efforts to curb poaching.

The next layer of the rainforest is the understory; this is between the floor and the canopy. There is more light here so the leaves are broad and this is the home for a lot of insects, butterflies, frogs and lizards. Some Rainforest animals move between the floor and the understory. You could find a boa constrictor or a frog in either place.

The most magical part of the rainforest may be the canopy. The trees stretch out along the skyline high in the air, sometimes more than 100 feet high. It’s dryer and warmer up here which makes it a perfect home for the sixty to ninety percent of rainforest animals which can be found in the canopy. Birds such as toucans and parrots live in the canopy with spider monkeys and howler monkeys. It can be loud during the day with the birds squawking and the monkeys chatting to each other.

The last layer is called the emergent layer which is comprised of super tall
trees that have grown above the canopy. The emergent layer gets more sun than any other area and the trees can be two hundred or even three hundred feet tall. There are some monkeys, like the black and white Columbus Monkey in Africa that lives way up high in the emergent layer. But by the time we reach this layer it’s mainly birds and butterflies that live up here because they have the ability to fly from tree to tree.

When you sign up to receive Save The Rainforest’s newsletter you are signing your name to a cause that believes in the preservation of these animals and their habitat. Watch for future blogs about what is being done to save the rainforest and keep these animals alive despite poaching and deforestation.

Save the rainforest is on a mission to support and encourage conservation efforts that make our environment a better place to live with a specific focus on the rainforest.

Rainforests are incredibly rich, diverse and complex ecosystems that help maintain the environmental balance across the globe. The Amazon Rainforest provides 20% of the oxygen for the entire planet and its ability to absorb CO2, which is created from our addiction to fossil fuels, is estimated to absorb 11 years worth of carbon dioxide emissions. And this is just the Amazon; this does not take into account rainforests from Africa, Asia or Australia.

Over 200,000 acres of Rainforest are being burned every single day and if conservation efforts are not enacted to combat this deforestation the entire Amazon Rainforest could be gone by the year 2050. You do not need to be a scientist to understand the dire implications we will face from global warming if we lose a source providing 20% of the world’s oxygen and storing more than a decade’s worth of CO2 emissions.

Save The Rainforest is on a mission to educate and engage people from every part of the globe on the importance of saving our rainforests for the health of our planet. It doesn’t matter where you live, what religion or nationality you are, the systematic destruction of the world’s most important natural resource is a loss that will affect each and every one of us.

This is about the rainforest. This is about the environment. We are not asking for your money, we are asking for your support. Show your support for this cause by signing up for our newsletter on the right side of this page. Like us on Facebook. If you write a blog that is relevant to the Rainforest or saving the environment, back link SaveTheRainforest.com to it. Tell a friend, our mission is to create a network of like-minded people with the common goal of saving our planet.

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