The Primary Forests of America, the great terrestrial paradise

The planet Earth is a whole and in order to understand we need patience to comprehend each of its edges, including its forests.

I give the readers, this simple reading on the primary forests of our America, I am sure that when you finish, your vision conservationist will have a larger dimension.

The primary forests are ecosystems that cover ten percent of the land surface, being them only ones preserved in a virgin state (or a good part of them) and they are large enough to ensure the survival of the vast majority of living beings, including migratory species.

According to scientists and environmentalists, 80% of these forests were destroyed and the rest of them are threatened by logging, oil exploitation, mining, construction of dams, roads, expansion of agriculture and livestock.

The 75% of the world’s primary forests are found in Canada and Alaska, Russia, the Amazon and the Guyanas. In the case of Europe, only remains 0.3% of the original forest in Sweden and Finland, in large uninterrupted areas.

Of these primary forests, the Amazon contains the greatest biodiversity, with 50% of all terrestrial animals and plants that depend on it for survival. Twenty million people, including many indigenous peoples, living in the Amazon.

Scientists state, that ecosystem remains around 60,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds and 300 species of mammals. The Amazon is also home to 20 million of Amerindians and Portuguese .

These communities depend on the forest to live. The forest provides them with everything from food and shelter, tools and medicines.

Following in the subcontinent, the South American temperate forests cover the regions of southern Chile and Argentina, represent the largest intact temperate forest in the world.

It is home to plant and animal species unique to this region. Such as the puma (Puma concolor), the mountain lion is a mammal of the Felidae family, the Darwin frog, the Pudu deer, the Chilote fox or the Araucaria tree.

In this forest indigenous communities live as the Pehuenche of the Valley of Quinque, Chile, or the Mapuche Indians of Huitrapulli and other local communities have always depended on the natural wealth of forest for their livelihood.

We also own the primary forests of North America and Canada that cover various types of forests. These include the boreal forest belt that stretches between Terranova and Alaska, the temperate rain forests of the coast of Alaska and Western Canada, and the multitude of residual areas of temperate forest in remote areas.

Together, these forests store enormous amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize climate change, and provide refuge for large mammals such as the grizzly bear, the cougar and the wolf gray, who formerly occupied the entire continent.

In Canada, it is estimated that primary forest provides habitat for about two-thirds of the 140,000 species of plants, animals and microorganisms in the country.

Of the seven remaining primary forests in the world, three are in Africa. The new century gives us this wonderful natural inventory.

The challenge will Preserve them. It is the great American legacy, we are the owners of Eden’s life, the true earthly paradise.

By Lenin Cardozo / Mariana Jaramillo