Have you ever been to a rainforest? Well, I’m going to take you to one now. Imagine yourself in a beautiful, relaxing rainforest. You can hear the trees swaying and the birds chirping, monkeys swing overhead and bugs crawl beneath. Many people call the rainforest the lungs of the earth because of the clean fresh air that the trees produce. The main problems threatening beautiful rainforests like these are; deforestation, poaching, and palm oil.

I want you to go back to the rainforest and imagine the feeling of fresh air in your lungs. The rainforests continuously intake carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen. When rainforests are burned this stored up carbon dioxide is released into the air, which pollutes the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and raises the global temperature.

Now imagine that you are back in the rainforest, look at the hundreds of different flora and fauna. Now imagine that being cut back, and a single type of tree being planted in its place. Deforestation and palm oil are both a very big issue in this rainforest. Many people have illegally been destroying rainforests for palm oil plantation, killing many animals including Sumatran rhinos, elephants, tigers, and orangutans.

Before we went to Sumatra, a team called Kids Cut Conflict Palm Oil gave us a presentation about what they were, and we were very inspired about their speech on palm oil. The orangutan is a mammal that is significantly affected by the deforestation for the palm oil plantations. Orangutans are affected the most because of living amongst the trees whilst they are being deforested, meaning their habitat is being destroyed.

Rainforests are the some of the most calming, graceful and spiritual places in the world. Our leafy palace can be all we need to survive. It has food, water, shelter and medicine but now it’s disappearing. People support the growth of palm oil but, as palm oil grows, the rainforest shrinks.

Finally, you are going to go back to your rainforest one more time and I want you to imagine your rainforest being cut down and burned. What would you do if this was happening to your home? Please comment down below what your rainforest is like.

Written by Elke Cruden