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Animals Rights Within the Rainforest

Student 4

Global Issues

10/1/99

Topical Rainforests are home to many of the strangest-looking and most beautiful, largest and smallest, loudest and quietest animals on the Earth. Some of the most common animals within these areas are jaguars, toucans, parrots, gorillas and tarantulas. Along with these animals there are also different species that most people have never heard of. Have you ever heard of the aye-aye? Or the okapi? There are even millions more fascinating animals that haven=t even been named or even identified yet. In fact, over half of the worlds species live in these tropical rainforests.

My name is Susan Anderson and I work for an agency that is promoting the rights and lives for the millions of different species inside of these rainforests. My colleagues and I visit these areas of the world and raise money to buy lands of forest so that they can not be torn down. Every species in this environment has its own occupancy that it survives in and has been living there long before the dinosaurs reigned. When the land is cut or burned down, these creatures either die along with the trees or they move to an even smaller space that they have to share with other rainforest species. Hydroelectric dams are changing the current flow in many of the rivers and causing them to overflow. Mercury is polluting these rivers and the fish are dying and some are being eaten by humans, infecting them as well. Since it is estimated that by the year 2050 all of the rainforests will have vanished, it is up to people of the world to stop it from happening. It is very ignorant of humans to believe that they are superior over all other organisms, especially when these forests and everything in them from plants, to animals, to microscopic insects, have lived on the planet millions of years. When the ice ages arrived they could not harm the forests because of where they were placed along the equator. Therefore, the plants and animals continued to evolve, and develop into the most complex and diverse ecosystem on earth. And now farmers and timber companies want to diminish them for their own space to use up. This is why I work to save the forests.

It is impossible for species that live in the rain forest to survive in any other part of the world. They have adapted to its environment and could not live in any other. It would be like moving someone who had lived in Florida all of their life to Antarctica with only the clothes that are on his or her backs. Animals, insects, and plants all depend on each other to survive. For example, Azteca ants live on the swollen thorn acacia trees, which offers the ants everything needed for survival-lodging, water, and food for themselves and their young. In return the Ant=s protect the tree from predators. Whenever the ant feels something brush up against the tree, they rush to fiercely fight the intruder. Another example is how birds and mammals eat off of the fruit trees. Even the fish in the Amazon River rely on fruits dropped from the forest trees. In turn, the fruit trees depend upon these animals to eat their fruit, which helps them to spread their seeds to far-off parts of the world. With this sort of buddy-buddy system that they have, they learn how to live in only this confined space. Trying to move them to another area of the world would kill them. They are so dependent upon one another that if one should become extinct, then the other will as well.

Animals have also adapted to the environment in other ways as well. Each species has evolved with its own set of unique adaptations, ways of helping him to survive. Camouflage is a technique that some animals use as protection from the predators. The coloring of each animal helps them to hide well within the canopies of the forests. The Awalking stick@ is one such insect; it calls home a palm tree and no one could even notice it unless it moved. Some butterflies, when they close their wings, look exactly like leaves. Camouflage also woks in reverse, helping predators, such as boa constrictors, who sneak up on unsuspecting animals and surprise them.

An average of 35 species become extinct every day in the world=s tropical rainforest. The forces of logging, cattle ranching, and over-population have all contributed to the loss of millions of acres of tropical rainforests. The animals are given no warning to move and most die when the forest is destroyed. Most large animals such as leopards and apes need miles and miles to roam and have tough times trying to survive in smaller fragmented habitats that they are forced into by humans. Many animals that do not live in the tropics suffer as well. Birds who migrate to the forests for winter are forced to stay within the cold weather due to their habitat being destroyed every year. Humans are altering their habitats too quickly for them to adapt. Only in this modern day have so many species become extinct in such a short period of time. Species will disappear in a mass extinction greater in its concentrated spasm than any since the emergence of cellular life, and the course of the evolution process will be modified if it is not stopped. As far as we can tell from the past, the animal ecosystem will need between ten and twenty million years to restore the damage done to the fabric of life.

Thus the losers, timberman, cattle grazers, or people wanting specific areas of living will include all inhabitants of Earth. Misuse and overuse of the forests through timber harvesting reflects international marketplace demand for tropical hardwoods. The consumerism appetite of developed-world citizens for specialized timbers of tropical forests has expanded almost twenty times during the past three decades. Most of the timber corporations are located in North America, Japan, and Western Europe. It still makes us wonder whose hand is on the chainsaw. The answer to the question is us. The whole world has something to do with the cutting and burning of the forests. The demand for beef for hamburgers, frankfurters, and other convenience foods in America causes these cattle grazers to use more land and tear down the forests. People all around the world are involved in the decline of the tropical forests.

The rain forests are known to be our Alungs of the world.@ There are many ways in which people can control or even stop these burnings from occurring and save millions of species from extinction. Support conservation organizations that specialize in tropical forests are taking funds and donations from anyone who is willing to give. Maintain pressure on the government, through, for example, letters to Congress, to give ever-greater support to tropical forestry through AID, The World Bank, UN agencies, and other international development bodies. Rainforests form part of the global heritage and we all find our lives enhanced by virtue of their existence. If we ever allow tropical forests to disappear from Earth, we shall have to tell ourselves that we have lost something of value. Anyway that we look at them rainforest are something special. The animals within themselves are amazing. The guilt that the world will have is never ending if by 2050 the rainforests are diminished to nothing but eroding dirt. Millions of animals will never exist again due to the worlds laziness and ignorance.

The Rainforest Mock World Summit Fall 1999