Australians should see the rainforest as a cultural landscape – one that has been managed and maintained by people, rather than just a relic unchanged since the dinosaurs.
Planting trees can sometimes be a carbon-offset box-ticking exercise, but reforestation is a long-term commitment that supports communities, promotes biodiversity and tackles the climate emergency.
In the Amazon, beetles and flowering trees have developed a tight bond. Hundreds of beetle species thrive off of and pollinate blossoms, helping to maintain some of the highest biodiversity on Earth.
To understand the barriers endangered species face when trying to traverse their habitat, it helps to think of their environment like an electrical circuit board.
As deforestation rates in Brazil rise, it’s worth asking whether the country can repeat the successes of the last decade. Current trends don’t bode well.
Professor, Interim Director of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC and Incoming Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria., University of British Columbia