Jungles: Givers of Life

            Among the greatest tragedies humanity is committing upon the earth is rampant destruction of rainforests. Every year we destroy an area of forest/jungle roughly equivalent in size to Costa Rica (19,730 sq miles or 51,100 km²). This comes out to roughly .4% of the worlds remaining forests per year. That number sounds small but if we continue at this rate (without factoring in the expected rise in this rate as the human population continues to increase) we will lose almost half of the worlds remaining forests and jungles by 2100. Jungles are destroyed for a variety of reasons; commercial logging, land conversion to farmland or pasture, firewood and other energy purposes, and clearing of land for mining purposes to name a few of the major contributors. Our destruction of the jungles of the world is having a devastating affect on wildlife all around the planet.

            So how important are jungles to the world’s wildlife? Well, basically the jungles are to land animals what coral reefs are to sea creatures. Like coral reefs, jungles have an exponentially higher level of biodiversity in comparison to other habitats (biodiversity is the variety of life in any given area, so a habitat with a high biodiversity will have a much larger number of species in a small area when compared to that of another habitat, jungle > desert). So consider that jungle only covers about 2% of the world but still contains about 50% of the worlds known species of plants and animals. This alone make them the crowning jewels of life on land and humanity should cherish and protect them.

            The most obvious way deforestation is affecting wildlife is through habitat loss. The alarming rate at which jungles the world over are disappearing is causing an even more alarming rise in the extinction rate of both plants and animals alike. Obviously once an area of jungle is chopped down there is less habitat for a given species to live in and their numbers are going to go down. This however, isn’t the only consequence of this habitat loss. As more and more forest is chopped down the remaining jungle becomes fragmented. This fragmentation of habitat can be just as lethal to a species. The reason for this is that for any area of habitat to maintain a stable population it needs to contain enough room to feed the population and sustain genetic diversity. When a population gets trapped in a fragmented patch of forest and are thus genetically isolated they begin inbreeding. Inbreeding, among many other problems, causes sterility and a population that cannot reproduce cannot survive.

Just one of the many species in danger

 

            It’s not just the animals that live in jungles that rely on them for survival either. There are countless species that rely on jungle processes that may not live anywhere near one. The reason for this is that jungles are so big and so powerful that they drive weather patterns worldwide. Water that evaporates in a jungle may not fall until it has drifted to a desert a thousand miles away making life possible in an area that otherwise may be nothing but shifting sands. The fact is the way that jungles affect the world’s climate is so complex that we have no idea how its loss will change the climate until the forest is gone and the damage is done. If the increase in the severity and frequency of major weather events in the last decade is any indication of what is to come it’s obviously in our best interests put a stop to anything and everything that is likely contributing to the problem and deforestation should be amongst the top of such a list.

The Congo is the 2nd largest, and least explored, jungle on the planet

 

            Jungles are far too important to nearly every living thing on the planet to continue to thoughtlessly destroy them. The reasons for the preservation of forests are so fundamental it’s almost unbelievable to me that there is a debate on the subject at all. Put simply we need them. We need them to stabilize climate, we need them to scrub CO² from the atmosphere, we need them to spread life giving rains around the world, we need them to provide us with ingredients for the countless pharmaceuticals that keep us healthy and cure disease. We need jungles as much as any species that calls them home. Jungles are the crown jewel of life on earth and almost every land species on earth is in some way or another beholden to their processes. It’s time we give them the respect they deserve as givers of life and protect these natural wonders, and thus the millions of species that call them home.

  

The jungles of the world are far to precious for us to allow them to be destroyed. The underlying ills responsible for their destruction can be cured and the time to do so is now.