Inside a rainforest



 



 



 



The heat and heavy rain in a rainforest are perfect for living things. Trees grow tall and flowers blossom. The lush rainforest provides food and shelter for the millions of creatures that it is home to.



 



 



 



 





 



 



 



 



Rainforests recycle their own water



Every day, the sun heats the rainforest, causing water from trees and plants to evaporate (turn into its gas form – water vapour). As the water vapour rises, it cools and condenses back into liquid water and forms rain clouds. When it rains, the plants soak up rain and the water cycle begins again.



 



 



 



 



 


Continue reading "Inside a rainforest"

What are rainforests?



 



 



Rainforests are dense, warm, wet forests, with huge trees. They are very special places. Over half the known animals and plants in the world live in rainforests, and new ones are being discovered all the time.



 



 



 





 



 



 



This is a tropical rainforest. It rains here almost every day.



More than two metres of rain falls in a tropical rainforest every year. It is a hot, wet and steamy place with little variation in weather and no seasons. As a result, the trees and plants stay green and keep growing all year round.



 



 



 





 



 



The white areas were once rainforests.



An area of rainforest the size of a football pitch is destroyed every second! They are cut down for their wood, or to make way for farms, mines or roads. These unique and important environments – which affect the world’s weather and provide us with medicine, food and oxygen – could be lost forever.



The green areas on this map show where tropical rainforests grow today.



Most of the world’s rainforests are tropical. They grow in ‘the tropics’, a hot area just north and south of the equator. The equator is the imaginary line we draw around the middle of the earth. Some rainforests grow further north and south of the equator where it is cooler. These are temperate rainforests.