Protecting forests - Greenpeace
Greenpeace campaigns for forest protection because, without healthy, thriving forests, planet Earth cannot sustain life. As much as eighty per cent of the world's forests have been degraded or destroyed. Greenpeace is campaigning for zero deforestation by 2020 to protect what is left of these extraordinary ecosystems.
Evolving over millennia, tropical forests are one of the greatest storehouses of nature's diversity on Earth; of all of the world's land species, around two thirds live in forests. Many of these rare creatures - orang-utans, tigers, jaguars, forest elephants and rhinos - are increasingly threatened by extinction.
But the importance of forests stretches far beyond their own boundaries. Forests help to regulate the Earth's climate because they store nearly 300 billion tonnes of carbon in their living parts - roughly 40 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
above photos © Greenpeace / Takeshi Mizukoshi | more
When they're destroyed through logging or burning, this carbon is released into the atmosphere as the climate changing greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. The destruction of forests is responsible for up to a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - more than every plane, car, truck, ship and train on the planet combined.
Forests also regulate water flow and rainfall so we depend on them to grow our crops and food. The loss of forest in one part of the world can have severe impacts in another; forest loss in Amazonia and Central Africa can severely reduce rainfall in the USA Midwest, for example.
Man made fires to clear land for cattle or crops in Brazil.
With so many of the world's forests already destroyed, we urgently need to protect what is left. Yet industry is still relentlessly converting forests into disposable products that end up in our shopping baskets - while pushing species to the brink of extinction, destroying the lives and livelihoods of forest communities and exacerbating global climate change.
Greenpeace is campaigning for zero deforestation, globally, by 2020.
more > Forests | Greenpeace International
About Greenpeace | Greenpeace
Greenpeace is the largest independent direct-action environmental organization in the world.
We do not take money from government or corporations. Our only bottom line is a green and peaceful future.
Veto Brazil's Forest Code
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff can veto damaging changes to Brazil's Forest Code, which would weaken protections for the forest.
Dilma: save the Amazon, veto the new Forest Code
We are edging closer to an “ecological calamity” in the Amazon rainforest and a vote in the Brazilian Senate has pushed us closer to the brink. Yesterday it voted to approve destructive changes to the laws governing forest protection – called the Forest Code - that would open up the Amazon rainforest to rampant destruction. But it is not too late. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will have the opportunity to veto the changes - you can ask her to protect the Amazon and veto the new Forest Code.
Save the Amazon, veto the new Forest Code | Greenpeace International
ticking climate bomb
Tropical forest destruction is responsible for about one-fifth of current global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.Keeping the global temperature increase below 2ºC (compared to pre-industrial levels) means GHG emissions must peak by 2015 and by this time the world must be set on track for drastic reductions in overall emissions.Ending deforestation in tropical forests is critical to protecting the global climate, biodiversity and forest dependent communities. Eliminating deforestation in just eight tropical countries – Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea – would nearly halve the annual rate of global forest loss.
The Climate Bomb is Ticking -- Call for Zero Deforestation to Protect the Climate | Greenpeace International - (contains link for DOCUMENT "the-climate-bomb-is-ticking.pdf"
Greenpeace 2011 in pics
2011 was the year the bottom shook the top, the year the ballerina danced on the bull, and "The Protestor" was named Time Magazine person of the year. The faces in our Year in Pictures pay testament and tribute to our contribution and to the benefit of standing up and taking action.
Year in Pictures 2011 | Greenpeace International
"Here at Greenpeace, bearing witness is one of our core principles. These multimedia photo-essays give a more in-depth look into just a few of the stories we've sent our photographers to cover."
Photo Essays | Greenpeace International: Bearing witness - photo stories and documentary from around the world.
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