World Rainforest Day 2022: Interesting facts about this day

New Delhi, Jun 22: Known as one of the most densely populated terrestrial ecosystems on Earth, rainforests are known to provide 40% of all the oxygen human beings breathe to survive. Due to the rapidly declining rate of rainforest cover on the planet today, June 22 is celebrated as World Rainforest Day to spread awareness about deforestation and eventual climate change.

World Rainforest Day is celebrated to honour rainforests that are incredibly crucial for the survival of life on Earth. So the sooner we adopt conserving habits, the better are the chances of Earth's survival.

History

Founded in 2007, Rainforest Partnership is a Non-governmental Organisation based in Austin, Texas. The organisation's mission was to preserve and regenerate tropical rainforests with the help of forest people and develop sustainable livelihoods to empower and respect both them and their natural habitat. Effective collaboration between different groups achieves this.

In 2017, Rainforest Partnership first celebrated World Rainforest Day on June 22. It was an extended mission for the organisation. The celebration was to identify the standing and healthy forests as powerful and cost-effective mitigation tools for climate change. It hoped to trigger an immediate global movement to protect and restore them.

Theme for 2022

The theme for this year's celebration of World Rainforest Day is "The Time Is Now." It is an effort to sensitise the general public on rainforests' crucial role in the survival of life on Earth. The theme highlights actions to be taken to save rainforests and the biodiversity within them.

Significance of rainforests

With rainfall throughout the year, rainforests are dense and green and host a wide variety of flora and fauna. Rainforests today occupy only about 6% of the Earth's surface. However, they still house 50% of the world's biodiversity of the planet. So it is important to realise their role in the planet's functioning.

Tropical rainforests have been prime oxygen generators across the world for centuries. As mentioned before, they provide 40% of the oxygen requirement on Earth. The Amazon rainforest, the biggest rainforest in the world, provides half of this value all by itself.

Rainforests are also an important source of livelihood for many. From coffee, spices, vegetable, rubber, and palm oil to various other products, humans depend on rainforests for many everyday requirements. Many researchers, Ayurveda and herbal doctors claim that rainforests house a variety of untapped medicinal plants, which have the potential to cure even the most incurable diseases today.

Moreover, rainforests are crucial fighters of global warming and climate change. They absorb pollution and excessive carbon dioxide and stabilise climatic patterns. Rainforests are believed to have the capacity to hold up enough carbon to equal almost a century's worth of annual fossil fuel emissions at the pace of today's world. They absorb twice as much carbon as they themselves emit.

With the fast-paced erosion of rainforests today, it is an emergency-like situation to stand up against harmful practices that greedy governments are encouraging, which will eventually result in the complete absence of these beautiful and vital ecosystems.

Governments and their efforts

No matter how many non-governmental organisations come up to support the preservation and restoration of rainforests in the world today, the measures that governments take toward this cause will always be crucial. So it is extremely important to make a note of how much effort countries are putting in to realise this cause.

Costa Rica, a country in Central America, is the only country in the world today to have halted and reversed deforestation. The government banned deforestation and encouraged farmers to preserve biodiversity and protect water sources. This helped regrow large areas of the country's forests lost since the 1970s. Countries like Indonesia, Argentina, Ivory Coast and Vietnam saw a significant decline in tropical forest cover loss from 2014 to 2020.

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November 2021, about 100 countries pledged approximately $19.2 billion in funds (both public and private) for ending deforestation and revitalising forest cover by the year 2030. Brazil, Russia, China, Canada, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the US, the UK, etc., which are countries covering 85% of the world's forests, were the signatory countries. Developing countries were promised funds to restore damaged forests and contain forest fires. Twenty-eight other countries pledged to remove deforestation from global food and other agricultural trade.

India was one of the few countries that did not sign the pledge at COP26. Speculations are that officials did not want it to disrupt trade, agriculture and livestock management, which would primarily affect the rural economy.

Celebrating World Rainforest Day

Various organisations organise webinars, discussions and activities that are an effort to raise awareness among people about the significance of rainforests on World Rainforest Day. Supporting such organisations, reducing personal carbon footprint, reducing meat consumption, using sustainable products, recycling, etc., are crucial steps everybody can adopt into their everyday lives for the cause.