Christmas Gifts that keep giving: The Rainforest Site Store

Today’s post is about The Rainforest Site Store, which promotes the preservation of the Amazon Rainforest. This online store is part of the Greater Good Network.

Here are some facts about the Amazon Rainforest, taken from http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm:

·      The Amazon Rainforest covers over a billion acres, encompassing areas in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and the Eastern Andean region of Ecuador and Peru. If Amazonia were a country, it would be the ninth largest in the world.

·      The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the "Lungs of our Planet" because it provides the essential environmental world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. More than 20 percent of the world oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest.

·      One and one-half acres of rainforest are lost every second with tragic consequences for both developing and industrial countries.

·      Nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century due to rainforest deforestation.

·      Experts estimates that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation. That equates to 50,000 species a year. As the rainforest species disappear, so do many possible cures for life-threatening diseases. Currently, 121 prescription drugs sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources. While 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, less that 1% of these tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists.

·      There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000.

·      In Brazil alone, European colonists have destroyed more than 90 indigenous tribes since the 1900's. With them have gone centuries of accumulated knowledge of the medicinal value of rainforest species. As their homelands continue to be destroyed by deforestation, rainforest peoples are also disappearing.

These are some alarming facts and statistics, but this is your chance to help make a difference! Each item you buy from The Rainforest Site Store will help to preserve at least 1,145 sq.ft. of rainforest!

If you would like to make a difference, but don’t have money to invest, go to The Rainforest Site and make a ‘free click’ to fund the protection of 11.4 sq. feet of vital wildlife habitat in the Amazon with each click!

Blessings!

Ronell x

“I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable.” {Jeremiah 2:7}

available from http://www.theshirtlist.com/save-the-rainforest-t-shirt/