International Day of Forests

 

The International Day of Forests is held on 21 March each year.  

If our forests aren’t healthy, we have no hope of being.   Forests – rainforests in particular – are the lungs of our planet. 

In a terribly simplified of way of putting it….

  • Trees breathe in all that carbon dioxide everybody on earth produces

  • Trees breathe out all the oxygen that we all need to breath in.

Forests matter.  We need to keep them health and well so that we can be.  In addition, many indigenous people live in forests and get their livelihoods from them.  And, of course, millions of animals call them home. 

 

What is the theme of International Day of Forests 2022?

The theme of International Day of Forests 2022 is:  Forests and sustainable production and consumption.  The website for the day (click on the link below)  

Find out more about International Day of Forests

7 ways we can help forests?

We can all change our approach to the way we look at forests and behave by in these steps

  1. Recognising the role they play in our health and wellbeing and why they matter
  2. Understanding how many animal and plant species and indigenous peoples call them home
  3. Looking at why forests are disappearing – we are destroying them at a great rate 
  4. What role we can  each play in stopping this destruction
  5. Appreciate forests – go to a forest or wood and just experience them all round you.  Let your senses really hear the sounds nature make, listen to the wildlife, smell the woods, watch the wildlife and the trees.  Just become one with the forests.  All forms of life have a role to play in an ecosystem and as we destroy it, so the ecosystem is liable to collapse.
  6. Making the decision to change any behaviours we have which inflict damage on the forest.   It's amazing how many things that we eat and use needed forests cleared for agricultural use, for example. 
  7. Support all those organisations which are working to save forests and look after them. 

Hendri is an amazing example of someone who had an opportunity to change his behaviour through a job offer and his short video from the EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency) in Borneo shows how important it is for people to have an income coming in, how important the work is that rangers do, and how it is possible to take a new approach to conservation – for starters, recognising that there is something we can all do.


 

Take a look at charities supporting forests and see what you can do to help.  You can take a look at our Conservation Charities pages and also take a look at these:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#InternationalDayofForests #forestsmatter #theJaneGoodallInstitute