100 Facts Rainforests – Bitesized Facts & Awesome Images to Support KS2 Learning

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Instead of growing in the soil and climbing up, like vines, the Strangler Fig starts its life high up in the canopy and grows down towards the soil. Help stabilize the world’s climate: Rainforests help stabilize the world’s climate by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This can be done for many reasons, such as clearing an area for farming, logging for wood, mining, settlement and roads.

Every year an area of rainforest the size of New Jersey is cut down and destroyed, mostly the result of human activities.

Climate regulation: Rainforests play a vital role in regulating the Earth’s climate by absorbing and releasing water vapor. The actions we take in the next 20 years will determine whether rainforests, as we currently know them, are around to sustain and nourish future generations of people and wildlife. Fact 17: If the rainforests continue to decline in the way that they have been, then about 5-10 percent of their species will go extinct every ten years.

Sadly, many of these species are on the brink of extinction, and their continued existence is crucial to maintaining the balance of marvelously efficient—but delicate—rainforest ecosystems. Rainforests also exist outside the tropics, including temperate North America, South America, Australia, and Russia. During the Ice Ages, the last of which ended about 10,000 years ago, the frozen areas of the North and South Poles spread over much of the earth, causing a high rate of animal extinction.Home to an incredible diversity of plants, animals, and trees — this rainforest is teeming with life. Added benefit: the shade requirements for Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee and cocoa farms also contribute to better quality crops. Even though it covers only 1% of the Earth’s terrain, this rainforest houses 6% of the world’s animal and plant species. Scientists estimate that more than half of life in the rainforest is found in the trees, making this the richest habitat for plant and animal life. If you haven’t taken any time to learn about the rainforest, then most of this information may actually be new to you.