“What magnificent vegetation! How brilliant the plumage of the birds, the colours of the fish! Even the crabs are sky-blue and gold! We have been running around like a couple of fools! For the first three days we got nowhere, since we kept dropping one thing to pick up another. Bonpland declares the he will go mad if these wonders don’t cease”

(The 19th century explorer Alexander von Humboldt´s first letter to his brother from the New World)

Each year, some 170,000 square kilometres of forest are removed worldwide, while deserts expand by 60,000 square kilometres, and an estimated 24 billion tons of topsoil are lost through erosion.

As the world’s rainforests are destroyed, thousands of species of plants and animals disappear along with their habitats whilst still completely unknown to science. In the beautiful, remote areas that have already given mankind coffee, rubber and countless medicinal plants such as quinine, it is estimated that less than one percent of all tropical plant species have been examined so far for their possible usefulness to mankind.

The rainforests are a global treasure that should be preserved for all humanity.
But most rainforest countries are trapped in a cycle of poverty, and they view with understandable contempt the insistence by industrialized nations that they should live in harmony with nature and not exploit their forests. After all, both Europe and North America destroyed most of their own ancient forest centuries ago.

Forest dwellers, those so-called primitive peoples who have lived among the trees for hundreds or in some cases thousands of years, do not need to be taught about conservation. But, unfortunately, the majority of indigenous groups around the world have few rights even on their own land and, as second class citizens, are themselves menaced by the same forces that threaten their environment; namely the hordes of migrant or foreign workers who come along the new roads carved through the forests bringing logging, farming and the exploitation of oil, nature gas and precious metals.
Clearly, in a world driven by gain, it has to be shown that pristine rainforests are also capable of turning a profit.

A number of rainforests countries earn millions of dollars each year through the sustainable exploitation of forest products like timber, flavourings and pharmaceuticals. Many others, including Peru, have turned instead to tourism, having learned at last that pristine habitats encourage biodiversity, the magic word that can unlock the benefits of eco-tourism – carefully controlled access to protected areas for limited numbers of city-dwelling tourists willing to pay well in order to experience the infinite variety of nature.

The world’s neotropical forest are essential to us all, but they are being destroyed in all our names under the dubious banner of economic growth.

While we need the rainforests to balance our planet’s water system and produce almost half the oxygen we and the rest of the world’s inhabitants breathe, the forests need us now if they are to survive at all, together with all their splendid biodiversity and ineffable beauty.