Rainforests are the lungs of our planet – regulators of the earth’s temperature and weather. They are also home to 50 per cent of the world’s animals and plants – which for centuries have been the source of many of our key medicines. And yet we’ve all heard of their systematic destruction; the raising of trees to make way for plantations of oil palms or cattle, the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, and the corruption that leads to illegal logging and pollution.
But this is the full story you’ve never heard: an in depth, wide-ranging, first-hand narrative that not only looks at the state of the world’s tropical rainforests today and the implications arising from their continuing decline, but also at what is being done, and can be done in future, to protect the forests and the 1.6 billion people that depend upon them. It is inspirational, too, in its descriptions of the rainforest’s remarkable birds and plants … and its indigenous people.
Rainforest is a personal story, drawing on the author’s many years’ experience at the frontline of the fight to save the rainforests, explaining the science and history of the campaigns, and what it has felt like to be there, amid the conflicts and dilemmas.
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Tony Juniper is an independent sustainability and environment adviser, including as Special Advisor with the Prince’s Charities International Sustainability Unit and as a Senior Associate with the University of Cambridge Program for Sustainability Leadership. He is a founder member of the Robertsbridge Group that advises international companies. He speaks and writes on many aspects of sustainability and is the author of several books, including the award winning Parrots of the World, Spix’s Macaw and How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take To Change A Planet? He was a co-author of Harmony, with HRH The Prince of Wales and Ian Skelly.His book, What has Nature ever done for us? was published in January 2013. He began his career as an ornithologist, working with Birdlife International. From 1990 he worked at Friends of the Earth and was the organisation’s executive director from 2003-2008 and was the Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International from 2000-2008.Follow Tony Juniper on Twitter @Tony Juniper