The Tropical Rainforests of the World In this term paper, I will explain the great importance of the tropical Rainforests around the world and discuss the effects of the tragedy of rainforest destruction and the effect that it is having on the earth. I will talk about the efforts being made to help curb the rate of rainforest destruction and the people of the rainforest, and I will explore a new topic in the fight to save the rainforest, habitat fragmentation.BackgroundTropical rainforests are bursting with life. Not only do millions of species of plants and animals live in rainforests, but may people also call the rainforest their home. In fact, Indigenous, or native, people have lived in rainforests for thousands of years. In North and South America they were mistakenly named Indians by Christopher Columbus, who thought that he had landed in Indonesia, then called the East Indies.The native people of the rainforest live very different lives than us. In this section, I will explain how very different our lives differ than from the Indigenous people of the rainforest. Although many Indigenous people live very much like we do, some still live as their ancestors did many years before them. These groups organize their daily lives differently than our culture. Everything they need to survive, form food to medicines to clothing, comes from the forest.Way of LifeBesides hunting, gathering wild fruits and nuts and fishing, Indigenous people also plant small gardens for other sources of food, using a sustainable farming method called shifting cultivating. First they clear a small area of land and burn it. Then they plant many types of plants, to be used for food and medicines. After a few years, the soil has become too poor to allow for more crops to grow and weeds start to take over. So they then move to a nearby uncleared area. This land is traditionally allowed to regrow 10 - 50 years before it is farmed again.Shifting cultiva...
