Rainforests “create the oxygen we breathe and regulate our climate. They are our life support system….But they’re being destroyed…destroying the best solution for climate change that we have.”
So says Dr. Jane Goodall as she launches her new work with the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative, a global effort to mobilize the world’s religions to help stop tropical deforestation and halt climate change.
Goodall made her mark on the world by studying and protecting chimpanzees. She’s turned her attention to the forests they live in because she sees species extinction, tropical deforestation, and climate change as inextricably intertwined.
She calls tropical forests “ecological marvels” that “provide water, food, and livelihoods for billions of people,” support millions of animals, and “create the oxygen we breathe.”
Topical forests are “our life support system” and their destruction threatens the biodiversity of all the world’s ecosystems, she warns.
Declares the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative on its website, “Iconic parts of creation are being lost forever.”
Protecting tropical forests has long been seen as key to addressing climate change. “After fossil fuel burning, deforestation is the largest emitter of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming,” the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative explains. That’s because trees and forests help absorb carbon dioxide while also acting as a sort of global air conditioner, providing cooling shade and playing a key role in the planet’s water cycle. When forests are cleared and trees are burned or left to decay, the carbon stored in them is released into the atmosphere. In an ecological “Catch-22,” destroying trees generates carbon dioxide, which the trees then can’t absorb as they normally would.
In addition to removing carbon from the atmosphere, forests also protect against floods, landslides, and tidal surges. They provide clean water, medicines, and crops like shade-grown coffee and chocolate. The number of species estimated to live in the world’s tropical forests may top 50 million, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. In fact, about 80% of the world’s identified species can be found in tropical rainforests, even though they cover only about 6% of the Earth’s land surface.
Despite these “natural capital” benefits, forest loss and degradation are estimated to cost the global economy almost $4 trillion each year. They’re also taking a toll on the indigenous people who live in forests, people who face grave threats from the mining, logging and agribusiness (like cattle ranching and palm farming) that quickly move to exploit the land when trees are cut.
The multi-faith non-profit wants to stop the clearcutting and burning in the forests of Brazil, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, and Indonesia that are demolishing an area about the size of the state of South Carolina every year. To do so, they are organizing globally on a number of fronts. They’ve involved Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Evangelicals, Hindus, Muslims, and the Ba’hai faiths. Interfaith Rainforest Initiative offers information in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Indonesian. They’re distributing religion-specific “Faith Tool Kits” with prayers, meditations, talking points and lesson plans that make it easier for the faithful in each group to get involved and mobilize their own communities. Their Faiths for Forests Declaration and Action Agenda was unanimously adopted by over 900 religious leaders from 125 countries at the Religions for Peace World Assembly on August 23, 2019 and entered as an official contribution to the UN’s Climate Action Summit on September 23.
They’ve also produced a beautiful and compelling video that shows in vivid detail what’s at stake if we lose the world’s tropical rainforests.
“Look to a different future, where faith unites us and makes protecting rainforests a shared spiritual priority, where we teach our communities that rainforests are a sacred trust,” Goodall urges in the video. “Affirm that protecting rainforests is a moral responsibility for all people of faith.” Then she says, “Mobilize a movement built on the values we share across our religions and spiritual traditions: stewardship for the earth and care for creation {as well as} social and economic justice.”
“We must end deforestation–because our children’s future depends on it.”
TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE: IT’S BEYOND TIME FOR CLIMATE SAFETY