Discover the rainforest

Names can be extravagant things — but not in the case of rainforests which truly live up to their moniker. These are the world’s oldest living ecosystem, some as ancient as 70 million years. Composed of incredible interwoven tapestries of plants, animals and birds, rainforests house over half of the world’s biodiversity. The WWF estimates that a 10-kilometre patch can hold 1,500 flowering plants, 750 different trees, 400 species of birds and 150 types of butterflies, with more kinds of ants on one tree than found in entire countries.




While rainforests hum with this grand richness of life, they also work as scientific motors of our environment. Both tropical ones, like the Amazon in South America, and temperate ones, like North America’s Pacific Northwest, produce 20% of Earth’s oxygen while the World Economic Forum finds rainforests absorb one-third of CO2 emissions annually. Through evotranspiration, they add moisture to air, the Amazon alone releasing 20 billion tonnes of water daily. This nudges rain, with over 50% of showers on a rainforest returned to the atmosphere, regulating rainfall — the World Bank finds the Amazon delivers rain as far as Argentina — worldwide.

Rainforests store water patiently, the Amazon itself holding one-fifth of the world’s freshwater. These forests full of miracles are now endangered. The FAO finds that while deforestation slowed by 30% between 2010 to 2018, the greatest losses occurred in rainforests which face razing for livestock, logging and agriculture. Since the 1960s, the WEF reports, half of the world’s rainforests have been destroyed, with 2,00,000 acres lost daily — this ecosystem has now shrunk to just 6% of Earth. Destroying rainforests is spinning a dangerous feedback loop, releasing CO2, increasing temperatures and dryness, scientists fearing desertified savannahs where once lush life prevailed.



However, the rainforest — and life itself — can still be saved. As Times Evoke’s global experts emphasise, multiple methods, from sustainable agroforestry to limiting forest fragmentation and halting defaunation, can preserve these entities. The rainforest symbolises interlaced life and intellectual discovery — a ‘new’ plant or animal is found in the Amazon every three days. Join Times Evoke on a journey to the rainforest, Earth’s great gift of life’s renewal and discovery.

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