The chair that you lazily lounge on or the papers that you scribble on were once tall trees in a forest somewhere! Rainforests are Mother Nature’s gift to mankind.
Trees form the basic structure of every rainforest. They are not just friends of the natural ecosystem, but also an irreplaceable element in the commercial sector. For example, hardwood trees like Mahogany fetch a huge profit in the furniture market. The wood pulp from the softwoods of the Canadian coniferous trees forms the raw material for making paper.
However, such large profits rule the market only for short terms. Forest resources are mostly non-renewable. A commercially valuable tree that probably takes decades to grow can be uprooted in just a few minutes! As the tree falls to the ground, it crushes several other smaller trees. A forest area can be wiped off in just a few days but will probably never recover at all!
Paving roads for mining minerals require the clearing of large forest areas. This creates hidden opportunities for illegal trade of timber and poaching of wild animals for bushmeat. Almost 90 per cent of the West African rainforests have disappeared. Apes and gorillas are killed and sold on roadsides and markets. Experts fear that at least 1/10th of the world’s total timber reaches the markets through illegal logging practices.
Picture Credit : Google
