1. SAVING THE RAINFOREST

2. Where can you find an antelope the size of a rabbit, a snake that can fly, or a spider that eats birds? All in tropical rainforests, of course!

3. Tropical rainforests are home to the largest and the smallest, the loudest and the quietest of all land animals, as well as some of the most dangerous, most beautiful, most endearing, and strangest looking animals on earth.

4. The world’s ancient forests maintain essential environmental systems
The world’s ancient forests maintain essential environmental systems. They influence weather by controlling rainfall and evaporation of water from soil. They stabilise the climate by storing large amounts of carbon.

5. The Carbon Cycle

6. The Amazon jungle is the world's largest tropical rainforest
The Amazon jungle is the world's largest tropical rainforest.  The forest covers the basin of the Amazon, the world's second longest river The Amazon is home to the greatest variety of plants and animals on Earth.  1/5 of all the world's plants and birds and about 1/10 of all mammal species are found there.

7. The world's rainforests are currently disappearing at a rate of 6000 acres every hour (this is about 4000 football fields per hour)!

8. How many ‘football fields’ of forest are destroyed per day?

9. When these forests are cut down, the plants and animals that live in the forests are destroyed, and some species are at risk of being made extinct.

10. Rainforests also provide us with many valuable medicinal plants, and may be a source of a cure from some deadly diseases.

11. The people who live in the rainforest have much to teach us about rainforests. From them, we can learn important information about medicinal plants which they have used for centuries for their health and well-being.

12. Forests can be managed without endangering rare species of plants and animals, and without risking global environmental damage. 
Companies should be made to plant new trees after they cut old trees down. 

13. We must be careful not to destroy the resources that people will need in the future.

14. Many animals from the rainforests are brought to our country illegally,  parrots and iguanas, for example.  

15. We should not buy these animals, since that encourages other people to bring in more animals.

16. Groups of people who live in the world’s rainforests are beginning to fight for their land, usually through peaceful demonstrations.
They are aware that taking action could lead to their arrest or even the loss of their lives, but they know that if they do nothing, the rainforest could be lost forever.

17. The Jocotoco
Foundation buys large areas of rainforest to protect the species that live there.
It owns and manages seven reserves in Ecuador, with another two planned.

18. The World Land Trust raises money to protect endangered rainforest.
With every $25.00 collected, they can buy one acre of land.
The Rainforest Café in London, is currently raising funds to buy its own large area of tropical forest .

19. We must shield it from the logger’s saw,
Mahogany
Durable, strong,
We must shield it from the logger’s saw,
Rich, warm
Hardwood

20. Henri Rousseau
The following paintings are by Henri Rousseau, a French artist ( ).
Henri Rousseau was a self-taught Sunday painter who retired from his job as a customs officer at the early age of 49.
He was completely self-taught, so his painting technique was different to other artists. He painted each colour one by one - first the blues and then the greens and so on - and he painted from the top to the bottom of the canvas.

21. Look closely at Rousseau’s paintings.
How would you describe his style?
Can you paint a picture of a rainforest, showing the diversity of wildlife in the rainforest in a similar style?

24. Leaf-cutter, or parasol ants, can rightfully be called the world’s first farmers.
They climb trees up to 100-feet tall and cut out small pieces of leaves. They then carry these fragments, weighing as much as 50 times their body weight, back to their homes.
Sometimes they need to travel 200 feet, equal to an average human walking about 6 miles with 5,000 pounds on his or her back! The forest floor is converted to a maze of busy highways full of these moving leaf fragments.
These ants don’t eat the leaves they have collected, but instead bury them underground. The combination of leaves and
substances that the ants produce such as saliva allows a type of fungus to grow. This fungus is the only food that they need to eat.

25. The aye-aye is a primate
The aye-aye is a primate. It has front teeth which grow continuously, like a rodent. It has a long flowing tail like a fox. It has naked ears like a bat, which it uses to find prey through echolocation. One of its fingers is extremely thin, and has a long claw for extracting insects from tree holes.

26. The Amatto (lipstick) tree is used to cure snake bites, to treat high blood pressure and as an insect repellent