The Tropical Rainforests and Their Importance to the Global Eco-system

The world’s tropical rainforests are disappearing at an alarming rate. Sooner than we know we will all become aware of their importance in our lives. Today, more than two-thirds of the world’s tropical rainforests exist as fragmented remnants of their past magnificence. Man in his headlong pursuit of power and dominance over nature continues to destroy the sacred trust to which he is an heir, the planet itself, our home spaceship earth hangs in the balance. What can be done at this late hour to turn the trend back towards sanity?

Tropical rainforests and their importance to the global ecosystem, and for that matter human existence, are paramount. Unequalled in terms of their biological diversity, tropical rainforests are a natural pool of genetic diversity which offers a rich source of medicinal plants, high-yield foods, and a plethora of other useful forest raw materials. They are an important habitat for migratory animals and sustain as much as fifty percent of the species of life on our planet, not to mention a number of diverse and unique indigenous cultures. Tropical rainforests also play an important role in regulating global weather in addition to maintaining regular rainfall, while buffering against floods, droughts, and erosion. They store huge quantities of carbon, while producing more than a significant amount of the world’s oxygen.

Despite their vital role, tropical forests are restricted to the small area of land between the latitudes 22° North and 22° South of the equator, or in other words between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Since the majority of Earth’s land is located north of the tropics, rainforests are naturally limited to a relatively small area relative to the overall global land area.

Like so many other natural places Tropical rainforests are a dwindling resource in the 21st century. The vast areas of forest, swamp, desert, and savanna that carpeted the Earth’s surface a mere five generations ago have now been reduced to scattered fragments. Today, more than two-thirds of the world’s tropical rainforests exist as fragmented remnants. Just a few thousand years ago, tropical rainforests covered as much as 12 percent of the Earth’s land surface, or about 6 million square miles (15.5 million square km), but today less than 5 percent of Earth’s land is covered with these forests or about 2.41 million square miles or 625 million hectares). The largest unbroken stretch of rainforest is found in the Amazon River basin of South America. More than half of this forest lies in Brazil, which holds about one-third of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests. Another 20 percent of the world’s remaining rainforest are in Indonesia and Congo Basin, while the balance of the planets rainforests exist scattered around the globe in tropical regions.

The global distribution of tropical rainforests can be broken up into four bio-geographical realms based roughly on four forested continental regions: the Ethiopian or Afro-tropical, the Austral Asian or Australian, the Oriental or Indo-Malayan/Asian, and the Neo-tropical.

Therefore it is imperative that what little remains of this vitally important land area is preserved and cherished. For were it to become more atrophied than it already is we may as well throw in the towel and admit that we just didn’t deserve our place on this planet and we can all go to our deaths knowing that we were the generation that turned its back on life itself.

Yet there is a way that we can all contribute locally so that nutrition and life force can be returned back into the rainforests of our world. By daily performance of an Ancient Ayurvedic process known as Agnihotra we can fulfill a vital function that no other technology known to man can accomplish. We can through our local daily performance and participation in this technology can breathe new life back into the rainforests of the world and in so doing simultaneously raise our awareness as well as all of mankind’s awareness collectively, for this cuts to the heart of the problem. Mans lack of awareness is the root cause of the mess we find ourselves in today and so it here that we must work to make the change. Join me in this great work and rise to the challenge that this catastrophic dilemma poses or we will have no one to blame but ourselves for the fruits of our collective in action.