Importance of Forests

Forests as Habitats

Although the ocean was the original home of all life of Earth, forests, as they themselves evolved, quickly became home to a vast majority of land based creatures... including early man.

Natural home to biodiversity
Today, the vast amount of diverse life that can be found in forests is evidenced by the startling statistics that accompany any analysis of a rainforest.

Although only covering 6% of the planet's surface, these lush green, often tropical masses contain around 50% of plant and animal species on this planet. In one square kilometre of rainforest, you can often find more types of life than can be found in an equivalent 1000 square kilometres in colder, more northern climes.

Forests support diverse life...
A forest can provide 3 of the key ingredients to a species' survival: water, food, and shelter.

...by gathering water...
All forests are great collectors and storerooms of water. Their root structure holds together the soil, and their leaf litter gets broken down and combined with minerals to form the equivalent of gigantic sponges - slowly releasing water into surrounding areas at a dependable rate.

...originating and supporting food chains...
A forest is home to many types plants, which are the food source for many types of animals, which are, in their turn, also sources of food for other animals. And, as these animals and plants die, they in turn become food sources for the plants that again become food sources for the animals.

This circle of life, the linkages between all animals and all plants, is often referred to as "The web of life" - a reference to the common dependencies between all life in an ecosystem.

...and providing shelter
Shelter is the last of the triumvirate. Trees take on the worst (and the best) of the elements: wind, sun, rain, temperature. By taking the brunt of these elements, under their cover they can lessen the impacts of too strong a sun, of destructively heavy rainfall, of lessening the vagaries of temperature change, and taking the punch out of strong winds.

In providing so many benefits, a plethora of both plants and animals alike have adapted to and taken shelter underneath the protective canopies of trees.

Forests as homes for life are disappearing
Consider so much life depends on and lives in forests, the fact that forest cover is now a fraction of what it used to be even a few hundred years ago, it stands to reason that there is less space for this diversity of life to live in, and increasingly greater contact with encroaching humans.

Increasing human-wildlife conflicts
Animals that normally live within the boundaries of a shrinking forest are forced to come out and look for food. This often brings them into conflict with human settlements that are often situated near forests (because forests provide food and water).

Important to recognize dependence of other life forms on forests
For this reason, reports are increasing of a conflict between humans and animals. Stories constantly come in from WWF offices around the world of elephants swatting humans, tigers attacking people, wolves eating sheep...

Forests are important not just to us, but to billions of other creatures and species as well. We have to recognize that these leviathans of the plant world are not just an economic resource to plundered, but whole mosaic of interlocking demand and supply on which a vast amount of life depends.

With careful management of what remains of our planet's forests, it has been shown that forests can be used, without them being destroyed - and this is what WWF's Global Forests Programme is working towards.