RAINFORESTS

NEXT.cc ’s TEAM is researching Rainforests. Rainforests are Earth’s oldest ecosystems. They foster more than half of the Earth’s plant and animal species on one sixth of the Earth’s surface. Rainforests are located on every continent except Antartica. Africa’s Amazon River Rainforest and Africa’s Congo River rainforests are the largest. The majority of rainforests are located between latitudes of 23.5°N (the Tropic of Cancer) and 23.5°S (the Tropic of Capricorn). Rainforests are habitats to diverse non human species critical to the Earth’s temperature and our ecological well-being. Rainforests contribute around 20% of the earth’s oxygen and reduce the impact of greenhouse has emissions. Rainforests restore 50% of the precipitation back to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, helping balance rainfall around the world. They also store freshwater. The Amazon Basin stores one fifth of the world’s freshwater resources- the same amount of the Great Lakes! In the meantime, explore the depletion of the rainforest in Bolivia.