World Rainforest Day 2020: Small steps that you can take to protect this precious natural resource

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The World Rainforest Day, observed on June 22, is a collaborative effort to raise awareness and encourage action to save one of the Earth’s most resources – our rainforests. The day is a celebration of this precious natural resources and is marked to encourage action to preserve it.

The first World Rainforest Day was launched in 2017 by Rainforest Partnership.

Why is the World Rainforest Day observed?
The Amazon rainforests alone supply 20 per cent of the oxygen we breathe and the fresh water we drink, clearing pointing to their importance for life on Earth. The rainforests not only absorb carbon dioxide and stabilise climate patterns, but they are also home to half of the world’s plant and animal species.

It makes one ponder that despite their critical importance for the survival of life on Earth, around 40 football fields of rainforests are lost every day. Deforestation causes 15 per cent of the global carbon dioxide emissions that furthers climate change – this is more than that from car emissions from the US and China combined.  Over the last 40 years, deforestation has stripped an area of one billion hectares -- about the size of Europe – from tropical rainforests.

Restoring out rainforests has the potential to reverse global emissions by a third.