While you read the previous page's statistics, approximately 150 acres of rainforest were destroyed. Within the next hour approximately six species will become extinct. While extinction is a natural process, the alarming rate of extinction today, comparable only to the extinction of the dinosaurs, is specifically human-induced and unprecedented. Experts agree that the number-one cause of extinction is habitat destruction. Quite simply, when habitat is reduced, species disappear. The disappearance of species at different levels of the biological gene pool raises serious questions about the potential effect on higher life forms, such as ourselves. 

In the rainforests, logging, cattle ranching, mining, oil extraction, hydroelectric dams and subsistence farming are the leading causes of habitat destruction. Indirectly, the leading threats to rainforest ecosystems are unbridled development, funded by international aid-lending institutions such as the World Bank, and the voracious consumer appetites of industrialized nations. If deforestation continues at current rates, scientists estimate nearly 80-90% of tropical rainforest ecosystems will be destroyed by the year 2020.

Tropical rainforests are by far the richest habitat on Earth. As many as 30 million species of plants and animals -- more than half of all life forms -- live in tropical rainforests. At least two-thirds of the world's plant species, including many exotic and beautiful flowers, as well as plants with medicinal value, occur in the tropics and subtropics.

Rainforests cover less than two percent of the Earth's surface, yet they are home to some fifty  to seventy percent of all life forms on our planet. The rainforests are quite simply the richest, oldest, most productive and most complex ecosystems on Earth. As biologist Norman Myers notes, "Rainforests are the finest celebration of nature ever known on the planet." And never before has nature's greatest orchestration been so threatened. Although 200 million indigenous people depend directly on the rainforest for food and shelter, at current rates of destruction, in 37 years the rainforests will be gone!  

Rainforests are also part of the global weather system. Destroying them alters the hydrological cycle -- causing drought, flooding, and soil erosion in areas where such events were previously rare. The cutting of forests also changes the albedo or reflectivity, of the earth's surface, which in turn alters wind and ocean current patterns and changes rainfall distribution. Two hundred days of the year there are thunderstorms in the rainforests where as much as 200 centimeters of rain falls annually.

Rainforests serve valuable economic purposes, providing much of the world's lumber and rubber. Unfortunately, this resource is being abused by irresponsible companies with a lack of concern for the future of these delicate ecosystems. The result is loss of habitat, loss of productive soils, and loss of potential sustainable economic resources.  For example, we have no idea how many undiscovered species there are in rainforests or whether the animals or plants in them may carry the cure for cancer, AIDS, or other diseases. Rainforests also have huge numbers of colorful birds, the greatest number of reptiles and amphibians, many mammals and most of the plant and insect species which exist in the world.

Rainforests represent a valuable education resource for studying the interconnectedness of natural systems, which scientists are only just beginning to understand. For example, a certain species of ants has a relationship with the rainforest Acacia plant. These ants raise their young inside the Acacia thorn. Not only do they make nests in the thorns, they also feed the infants and themselves with material obtained from the plant. In exchange for this safe home and constant food supply, the ants constantly patrol the plant and attack any animals which try to feed on the plant. If we destroy either the plant or the animal, both may  perish.

Preservation is therefore important and so is restoration. Around The Bosque Lluvioso Río Costa Rica, a considerable acreage of forest lands has been previously cleared for agriculture or other reasons. A considerable opportunity exits for a series of forest restoration pilot projects to be conducted by qualified ecologists and experts in the field. Therefore, forest restoration is a very important part of the scientific and educational component of The Bosque Lluvioso Foundation.