Yasuni for the World

As we know about day by day degradation and damage to ecosystems and biodiversity over the world, even with the amazing properties that nature has to protect itself and survive, big pressures can eliminate life in short periods, as it has been happening with world forest in recent years. According to a report on the State of the World’s Forests (FAO, 2011), the rate of deforestation and loss of forest from natural causes is alarmingly high, from an estimated of 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s to around 13 million hectares per year in the last decade. It also mentions that The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 found that the world’s total forest area was just over 4 billion hectares, corresponding to 31 percent of the total land area.

Yasuní, a part of the Amazonian forest (the last forest in the world in terms of size and biodiversity), is also valued for its role in climate change. Plants remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and absorb it for photosynthesis, creating mainly oxygen, which is released back into the air, and carbon, which allows the plant to grow. This well known rainforest process controls a greenhouse effect that could be even more pronounced and perhaps have worse climate change effects.

For many years, the forest has been a supply of food, construction materials, remedies, etc., for local people, but it has also had an important global role, as plants from the forest are used in medicine beneficial to people all over the world.

Yasuní represents pure life for many people who have become aware of this exceptional land and ecosystems. Even more than being home to many living beings, it also gives us the opportunity to admire and learn from natural and rational ways of life, that can teach us a lot now, and that can allow us to provide a big lesson in values and respect to the next generations.