Cool Earth and Tropicana team up to save rainforest

Fruit juice producer Tropicana has joined Cool Earth on a scheme to help save the rainforest, 100 square feet at a time.

People who buy specially-marked Tropicana products in the US, can each help protect the most endangered sections of the rainforest.

Each package will have a code that consumers enter at www.tropicnarainforest.com. Every time a new code is entered, Cool Earth will save a patch of the Amazon rainforest in Peru.

Fruit juice drinkers can keep track of the expanse of rainforest that they have helped to save using technology from Google Maps, which presents an aerial view of the area.

Tragically, people using the satellite imagery will also be able to see scars in the rainforest, where it has been deforested for a variety of reasons.

The Amazon rainforest is under threat from economic pressures which see people slash and burn to clear way for agriculture and cattle as well as the cultivation of illegal drugs.

It is also cut down in generate timber, largely for foreign markets, according to a GEO Amazonia report.

In order to protect portions of it, Cool Earth, which employs local people, sets up local trusts, ensuring the rainforest is managed sustainably, while also generating an income for the local economy.

The initiative with Tropicana, named Rescue the Rainforest, aims to protect the valuable environments from deforestation while providing communities with sustainable livelihoods.

Cool Earth executive director Matthew Owen said: "We hope the Rescue the Rainforest initiative spreads across the country, thereby enabling us to make a significant impact on protecting the rainforest and its invaluable resources."

The rainforest is home to a vast array of plant and animal species and is a rich source of information for scientists.

Recently scientists claimed to have discovered the origins of insect flight by observing one wingless insect species' controlled fall from tree branch to tree branch.

While the diversity of wildlife and plant life of the rainforest has been well documented and is an important part of the public's perception of the lush habitat, the rainforest is also an essential resource for the planet as a whole.

Its rich vegetation acts as a massive carbon sink, absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide – the main gas responsible for global warming.

According to recent scientific studies, the rainforest can absorb a fifth of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with humans burning fossil fuels.

However, this ability is impaired, and even reversed, by adverse climate conditions and human behaviour.

Every time a tree is felled, it means that instead of absorbing CO2, the gas that it has trapped over its long life will be released when it is burned or as it decomposes.

Rising temperatures and lowered rainfall can also turn the rainforest from a net remover of CO2 from the atmosphere into a net contributor.

During a drought in 2005, during which "trees died faster than before", the rainforest also absorbed less carbon dioxide than usual as plant growth slowed down.

Researchers at the University of Leeds discovered that "instead of being a sink of about 400 to 500 million tons, the system became a source of somewhere close to a billion tonnes in that year".

The rising emissions contribute to increasing temperatures which in turn complete the vicious circle by impairing the rainforests ability to absorb carbon and making it a net emitter.

Another vicious circle includes rain, which is problematic for the planet as the Amazon is the world's largest freshwater basin in the world.

"If the loss of forests exceeds 30 per cent of the vegetation cover, then rainfall levels will decrease," the GEO Amazonia report said. "This will produce a vicious circle that favours forest burning, reduces water vapour release and increases smoke emissions into the atmosphere

Prince Charles recently visited the Amazon Rainforest and urged local and global leaders to protect it, noting that wealthy countries had a responsibility to help save the rainforest.

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