Forests are known to be the lungs of our planet. They process carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, thus ensuring the possibility of existence on earth of all animal species, including higher primates – humans. But we are barbaric about forests, destroying them for timber, and every year the situation is only getting worse, despite the efforts of individual countries to stop and reverse this destructive process.
Interesting facts about forests
- In the modern world, about 30% of all land is covered by forests, but even 200 years ago, forests occupied twice as much space.
- The largest forest in the world is the taiga, which occupies about 79% of the territory of all of Russia (interesting facts about the taiga).
- Approximately 7% of all forests in the world are purposefully planted by people.
- Despite the impressive size of the aforementioned taiga, almost 50% of all the world’s forests are in the tropics.
- About 50% of all land animal species live in forests.
- More than 20% of the world’s medicines are produced from plants growing in tropical rainforests.
- Of all the countries in the world, Malaysia is the fastest losing its forests. There the forest zones are already almost exterminated. But small and poor Bhutan, on the contrary, is stubbornly planting trees wherever possible.
- Forests around the world annually absorb more than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, turning it into oxygen (interesting facts about air).
- Worldwide, the wood industry employs about a million people.
- About 40% of the world’s energy is generated using wood fuel, mainly charcoal.
- Every year there are more than 3 million hectares less forests on Earth. For comparison, this is approximately the size of Moldova.
- More than half of all paper products in the world are made from recycled materials. This helps save wood.
- March 21 is considered the International Day of Forests.
- Not far from Kaliningrad, there is an amazing Drunken Forest – a place where the trunks of all trees are strongly bent and seem to be mangled.
- The most forested country in Europe is Finland, where about 70% of the territory is covered with trees.
- Forests receive only about 10% of all the nutrients they need from the soil. They absorb everything else from the atmosphere.
- On average, about 4 tons of paper are produced from one tree.