How to Save Our Jungles

Large areas of our planet's wild jungles still remain full of extraordinary wildlife. We can ensure their future and increase them, whilst still having land to provide all the food our growing human population needs. But only once we accept that jungles are too precious to continue chopping them down. Jungles are essential for our planet to function. They regulate global weather. The clouds they create reflect the sun's heat, helping to cool the planet. They generate vast amounts of water, which is carried on air currents around the globe. And their ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere makes them an essential natural ally in the fight against climate change. Jungles also give us extraordinary foods, unique hardwoods, countless medicines. All of this is due to one thing, their bewildering diversity of life. Jungles are home to over half of all the species that live on land. Each patch of jungle hosts an extraordinary variety of plants and animals. This valley holds a different combination to the next, and the next. There are countless unique micro-worlds. Each of these micro-worlds is connected to its neighbours, all continuously interacting to keep the entire jungle working. So every time we clear a patch of jungle, we risk losing something forever. A strand of the intricate web of life is gone. Each patch we lose damages a jungle's ability to function, and its capacity to help maintain the health of our planet and ourselves. Therefore, every patch of jungle is precious. So how do we ensure we keep the jungles that we have left? The truth is, we don't have to clear any more jungle. We've already cleared enough to grow all the food and timber our future population will ever need. If we learnt how to use cleared land more efficiently, we wouldn't have to keep chopping down jungle. Brazil has over 170 million hectares of cattle pastures. That's seven times the size of the UK, just for cows. Much of this land was previously jungle, and is now too degraded to support cattle. Some innovators are seizing this opportunity. Pulp and paper companies are regenerating this degraded land to plant fast-growing, super-efficient plantations. They are also restoring the jungles around their plantations. Some palm oil producers are making the most of degraded lands in Borneo and leaving the jungle standing. Across the globe, this mosaic system is taking hold, planting efficient crops on existing cleared land and restoring jungles wherever possible. The new jungles retain more water and prevent fires, which helps the crops. And they act as vital corridors for all that jungle life. Imagine how much more jungle will be restored as other companies use existing cleared land in this way. Whilst protecting our remaining jungles, it's still possible to use them as long as we do so in sustainable ways. We can carefully extract a few of those sought-after hardwoods. Single trees fall all the time in jungles. By felling the right tree in the right place at the right time and removing it in the right way, we can imitate nature. Timber is just one of the many products that jungles can provide. For centuries, communities have been planting and harvesting crops beneath the canopy. We're constantly discovering foods that we can grow in this way, new flavours that we can all enjoy. Millions of ecotourists visit jungles each year. Tourists bring much-needed revenue in exchange for the extraordinary beauty and unique diversity of jungles. They don't come for this. They want to experience vibrant, healthy, diverse jungles. All these ideas help communities and individuals make a living from standing jungles while reducing unregulated clearing of the forests. But local efforts alone are not enough to guarantee a future for our jungles. That needs action on a global scale for us all to realise the value of jungles to the entire planet. We can start with the products we buy. Imagine a future in which we can all choose products guaranteed to be deforestation-free. Right now, that's not always possible. But that could change very quickly if we all demand to know whether our products have caused the destruction of jungles. Then we're sending a clear message to producers and companies that we'll only accept products which are deforestation-free and that companies can profit by telling us that. Governments everywhere could also play their part by financially rewarding tropical nations for locking away carbon within the trees of their jungles. In this way, all countries can contribute to the cost of protecting jungles and to maintaining the essential functions that we all depend on. Once we begin to value jungles as the special places they are, we can look forward to a future with far more jungles and their diverse wildlife than we have now. Jungles that will last forever.