The Amazon and us 22.10.13 Your guide to the earth’s oldest living ecosystem | theguardian.com/xxxxxxxx
The secrets of the rainforest From medicines to the weather, we explore this great and fragile resource
WORKING TOGETHER TO HELP SAVE 1 BILLION TREES
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The Guardian | Tuesday 22 October 2013
The Amazon and us
Introduction
future, the I Love Amazon Schools campaign hopes to educate the citizens of tomorrow to make the right choices. “Considering how valuable the Amazon rainforest is, it’s devastating to think that we’re losing so much of it every minute,” says adventurer and WWF ambassador Ben Fogle. Cherry Duggan, head of schools and youth, at WWF UK
says: “By taking part in the I Love Amazon Schools campaign, teachers can bring the rainforest straight into the classroom and bring the issues to life. We want children to engage in the awe and beauty of the rainforest, but also to realise its importance and fragility. As the next generation, our schoolchildren play a vital role in understanding and protecting this amazing treasure trove of biodiversity.” I Love Amazon Schools can be run at any time throughout the year in order to fit around a school’s schedules, and teachers can access a range of downloadable educational tools and activity guides. To find what resources are available and how to register your school, visit: sky.com/amazonschools Steve McGrath
Did you know? The Amazon biome – or ecosystem – covers 6.7m sq km (around 28 times the size of the UK) and is shared by eight countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname, as well as the overseas territory of French Guiana.
It consists mostly of dense moist tropical forest, but also includes savannas, floodplain forests, grasslands, swamps, bamboos and palm forests.
Temperatures usually average 27.9°C in the dry season and 25.8°C in the rainy season. Not only does the Amazon encompass the single largest remaining tropical rainforest in the world, but one in 10 of the known species on Earth lives there. The Amazon is home to more than 30 million people, about 9% (2.7 million) of who are indigenous people (including 350 different ethnic groups). It is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. In the 10 years from 1999 to 2009, more than 1,200 species of plants and vertebrates were identified for the first time, including 637 plants, 257 fish, 216 amphibians, 55 reptiles,
16 birds and 39 mammals. Discoveries ranged from a coin-sized pink ringed frog to a four-metre-long anaconda. The Amazon river flows for more than 6,600km, contains the largest number of freshwater fish species in the world and accounts for around 15% of the world’s total river discharge into the oceans. During the last 50 years, humankind has caused the destruction of at least 17% of the Amazon rainforest, an area twice the size of Spain. Every year, the Amazon rainforest receives torrential rainfall, between 1,500mm and 3,000mm, either blown from the Atlantic Ocean or from evapotranspiration – the loss of water from the soil by evaporation and through transpiration from plants.
Inside 03 Grow your own Primary schools inspire pupils by creating their own rainforests 04 Loving the Amazon Why we in Europe rely on the rainforest 06 It’s a jungle out there Experiencing the tropics in the UK 07 Eco-warriors The pupils leading the green revolution 08 At the crossroads The future of the rainforests Commissioned by Steve McGrath. Produced for Guardian Business & Professional. Brief agreed with WWF. Funded by Sky. Contact Steve Rackham on 020 3353 2700 (steve.rackham@guardian.co.uk). For information on sponsored content, visit: theguardian.com/sponsored-content
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The Amazon contains 90-140 billion metric tonnes of carbon, the release of which, if not controlled, could accelerate global warming significantly (currently land conversion and deforestation in the Amazon release up to 0.5 billion metric tonnes of carbon per year). It is therefore an important factor in regulating global climate.
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY ALAN BAKER
The Amazon rainforest: we know it’s beautiful and important, but it’s also on the other side of the world from us; and that makes it easy to forget just how vital a role it plays in all our lives. Fifty-five million years in the making, the Amazon is a unique and irreplaceable feature of the natural world, providing resources and performing functions that all of us – people and wildlife, locally and globally – depend on. But it’s under threat. About a fifth of the Amazon rainforest has already been lost to deforestation, and a staggering area, the size of three football pitches, disappears every single minute. Deforestation is putting the future of the people, animals and plants that call the Amazon their home, at risk. And it’s also having a huge impact on climate change. Which is why WWF and Sky have teamed up for a dedicated initiative to try to save the rainforest. Now in its fourth year, Sky Rainforest Rescue aims to take direct action and help spread the word closer to home, not least through its I Love Amazon Week of activity. “At Sky, we know that tropical deforestation is one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time,” says Fiona Ball, Sky’s head of environment, “and with WWF we aim to help save one billion trees in the Amazon. We’re aiming to make a real and lasting difference.” Recognising the next generation could hold the key to the rainforest’s
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The Guardian | Tuesday 22 October 2013
The Amazon and us
Sowing the seeds Two schools tell Kim Thomas how they created their very own Amazon rainforests
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hen year 1 pupils at Tower Hill school in Witney, Oxfordshire returned at the end of the Easter holidays, they didn’t just step into their old classroom, but a mini rainforest. Despite the summer weather, the heating was full on, and a CD of Amazon sounds played in a room covered in green and decorated with displays of exotic plants and animals. Arlene Moody, who takes year 1, is an inspirational teacher who doesn’t do things by halves. “I wanted the children to get as close as possible to experiencing life in another very different part of the world,” she says. Every activity the children did that term was related to the rainforest. For science, they dissected plants, made leaves out of card, learnt about bromeliads and made little frogs to go inside. “The maths was easy – we did lots of measuring and weighing for food and things they would have in the rainforest.” After learning about how one of the largest forest-dwelling tribes, the Yanomami, lived, the children built their own Yanomami home in the school’s woodland area, and “fished” and “hunted” for food. It helped them develop team-building skills as well as taking in geography, history and science, says Moody. Even food technology took on a rainforest theme when the children set up a special rainforest cafe and invited their parents.
Rainforest reporters After the stress of Sats, it was time for the year 6 children at St John’s Catholic school in Rotherhithe, south-east London, to do something completely different. So for the last few weeks of their school year, they studied the Amazon rainforest from every possible angle, using a crosscurricular approach that took
Children at the Hayes Park primary school in Middlesex have an ecodome in their playground Bringing a topic as remote as the rainforest to life is challenging, but as Moody shows, even children as young as five can engage with it if it’s taught well. For instance, more than 1,500 schools have so far signed up to “I Love Amazon Schools”, a free resource that offers activity ideas for primary schoolchildren across the curriculum and termly challenges. At Hayes Park primary school in Middlesex, where care for the environment is a theme that runs across the whole school, they’ve built a 7.5m-diameter ecodome, to house a mini rainforest. It’s involved a massive fundraising effort (the dome and its contents cost more than £40,000), and children, teachers, other local-cluster schools and the Groundwork Trust have all
in geography, science, maths, English, information and communications technology (ICT) and art. For their art activity, the children painted some Amazon scenes, framed them, and sold them to their parents, while maths work included looking at data such as how many trees are chopped down in a minute and extrapolating from that. They also spent time analysing graphs relating to the Amazon, says headteacher Vera Jajechnyk:
helped bring the project to fruition. The children now have their own rainforest in their playground, housing tropical plants and butterflies raised by the reception children. A small farming area is used
“Having just done the Sats test, where children are presented with graphs and have to answer questions on them, it’s really nice that they’re looking at graphs linked to the Amazon. They find genuine meaning from them because they’re looking
to illustrate what is happening in the parts of the rainforest that have been cut down, and the vegetables grown there have been used to make food. One year 5 activity is to role-play different people involved in the rainforest, such as a farmer, or a contractor, so they can understand the different points of view. “We try to bring home the economic issues, rather than simply saying, ‘The rainforest should be saved – it’s terrible what these people are doing,’” says Sara Smart, assistant head. At Tower Hill, the children haven’t forgotten their term in the rainforest. As Moody was walking past the monkey bars in the playground the other day, three year 2 children yelled out at her: “We’re still howler monkeys, Mrs Moody!”
for answers to their own questions.” The St John’s primary school pupils entered the Sky Rainforest Rescue Young Reporter competition last year, working in pairs or groups to make two-minute videos about a topic that interested them, Sky News presenter Charlotte Hawkins with the reporters of St John’s school
such as the toucan, or the use of Amazon products to make cosmetics. They undertook research, wrote scripts and then made the videos using the school’s iPads, in some cases filming in the woodlands near the school. One of the videos even won a runners-up award, and Jajechnyk says it was an excellent way of helping all the children to learn about a topic: “If they have to produce a movie to share what they found out with an audience, they really absorb it.”
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The Guardian | Tuesday 22 October 2013
The Amazon and us
It’s a jungle out there A range of education programmes are bringing the rainforest to life for children, says Kim Thomas
ful resource,” says Sam Kendall, the Eden Project’s school programme manager: “Experiencing the full sights, sounds and smells of the tropics brings the subjects of conservation, biodiversity and climate change to life.”
Creature comforts
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eachers have come up with some great ideas for teaching the Amazon in the classroom – but there’s no substitute for experiencing it firsthand. However, while real-life trips to the rainforest are beyond the budget of the average primary school, there are ways to give a flavour of it in this country. One way is simply to devise your own outdoor rainforest activity, using whatever open space you have nearby: woodland, fields or even the school playground. It’s easy enough to set up a woodland trail, using pictures and information sheets pinned to trees, which pupils can follow, armed with clipboards and answering questions. Children could also set up camp and use scientific equipment such as binoculars to spot wildlife or jars to collect rainforest animals (you can buy tubs of plastic creatures fairly cheaply).
Rainforest trails bring pupils close to new sides of nature
Rainforest experience: Discovery Trails
The view from the top The most well-known place you can gain a realistic rainforest experience is the Eden Project in Cornwall, whose star attraction is the Rainforest Biome – at 50m high, it’s the world’s largest rainforest in captivity. The biome houses 16,000 individual specimens from more than 1,000 species, including bananas, vanilla plants, rubber trees and cocoa plants – a great way of showing children the rich diversity of life in the real Amazon rainforest. Wildlife includes lizards and Sulawesi white-eye birds, as well as tropical butterflies that fly freely around the biome. Visitors can even take a trip to the lookout at the top of the canopy to get a spectacular view of the rainforest below. The recently opened aerial walkway enables visitors to walk among the treetops and see exhibits en route, such as the Canopy Camp, where an aerial laboratory enables children to learn about the role of the rainforest in maintaining life on earth by providing food, clothes and medicines, and keeping the temperature cool. The biome is a “wonder-
Chester Zoo’s Rainforest Trail is aimed at key stage 2 children and designed with curriculum links in mind. It may lack the awe-inspiring scale of the Eden Project, but it nonetheless introduces children, as they walk through the zoo, to the different animals, such as jaguars, twotoed sloths and giant pencilfish that inhabit the Amazon and other rainforests. Along the way, the children learn about concepts such as food chains and evolutionary adaptation in the rainforest context. Finally, The Living Rainforest in Berkshire is an ambitious venture that welcomes school visits. Home to 700 species of plants and animals, including birds, butterflies and reptiles, the centre houses such attractions as the giant Amazon water lily – with leaves that can grow to 2.6m across – a West African dwarf crocodile, and a plumed basilisk. The Living Rainforest offers four educational tours for school
‘Being able to touch the plants really made us feel like we were in a rainforest’
Sky and WWF, in partnership with the Forestry Commission, have launched a series of free Discovery Trails in parks and woodland all over England, to help families learn more about the rainforest through sounds and stories. Each trail is about a mile long, and includes five interactive installations. The installations uncover why the Amazon is so important and how you can help to save it. Visitors can also test their knowledge of forests in this country and the Amazon. The experience is multi-sensory and interactive – visitors can engage with the sights, sounds and products of the Amazon, comparing them with those of their local forest. They might
even bump into a friendly jaguar … So far, trails have been set up at Alice Holt Forest in Surrey, Beechenhurst in the Forest of Dean, Cannock Chase Forest in Rugeley, Sherwood Pines in Nottinghamshire, Hamsterley Forest in County Durham and Dalby Forest in North Yorkshire. The trails will close at the end of 2014. “Our forests are vitally important,” says Amanda Larsson, communications manager at WWF-UK. “By encouraging people to put on their walking boots and explore local woodlands, we hope our trails will inspire them to think about protecting far off tropical places like the Amazon rainforest too.”
pupils, focusing on different themes: Amazing Adaptations, which looks at how plants and animals have adapted to rainforest life; Edible Forest, which helps children to understand how many of the foods they eat come from the rainforest; Sustainable Future, which explores the concept of “sustainable development” and its implications, and is aimed at older children; and Rainforest Medicines – a look at the medicinal uses of rainforest plants and animals. “Being able to touch the plants, see the butterflies and hear the monkeys really made us feel like we were in a rainforest,” says Mary Horwood, a year 2 pupil at Sonning Common Primary School in Oxfordshire about a recent trip. “Now I’d love to find out more.”
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The Guardian | Tuesday 22 October 2013
The Amazon and us Shawhead primary school
Year 5 at St Cedd’s primary school meet eco challenges head on
Owning the future Nationwide challenges give pupils the chance to lead on environmental issues, as Helena Pozniak discovers
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hen St Cedd’s school in Chelmsford took on a challenge to improve its environmental credentials, it proved even nine-year-olds can have clout. With sustained lobbying and a letter-writing campaign, pupils persuaded local drinks manufacturer Britvic to sell a Fairtrade beverage in their area for the first time. Inspired, they took on the House of Commons, and received a letter from deputy prime minister Nick Clegg on the eve of a summit on the Millennium Development Goals, praising their activities. St Cedd’s year 5s were taking part in the Sky Rainforest Rescue Schools Challenge, which gives ideas on how to “green” a school and tackle environmental problems around food, energy and waste. Other national campaigns, such as EcoSchools and WWF’s Green Ambassadors Scheme also offer support. British playgrounds may seem a world away from the planet’s largest rainforest and mightiest river, but schools are fertile ground for smallscale actions that have the knockon effect of raising environmental
How could a tiny school with a total population smaller than a single average class help save the rainforest? Through sheer focus, solidarity and imagination. “The key to success was making sure ideas came from the children, and this really engaged them,” says Karen Little, head teacher at Shawhead primary school in Dumfries and Galloway. “Our children are confident little people and they expect to be heard.” Shawhead has just 16 pupils but is a previous winner of the national Sky Rainforest Rescue Schools Challenge and is currently working towards its fourth greenflag award from an international Eco-Schools initiative. “The rainforest challenge was a different, brilliant way to inspire pupils who were already very familiar with environmental issues,” says Little. “Beautiful geography, exciting animals – it made it interesting and became our focus of learning for nearly three months.” Using free resources based
around the curriculum and involving citizenship, geography and science, Shawhead’s self-styled “carbon busters” team are enthusiastic about their work, in and out of school. “We have a strong community which supports the school; that really helps,” says Little. As part of the Sky Rainforest Rescue Schools Challenge, pupils took home energy monitors, lectured their parents on car sharing, visited a new biomass energy plant, grew produce and created recycled products such as draught excluders from recycled clothing and fuel from shredded paper. A blog and regular online competition helped whet the children’s appetites for initiatives and sustain their interest, and boosted their ICT skills to boot. Pupils’ efforts culminated in a visit to the Scottish parliament to deliver a report on their activities “and tell politicians about saving the rainforest,” says Little. “The children threw themselves into the challenge and it moved very fast.”
awareness in the wider community. It’s key, say teachers, to give pupils ownership of an eco-project and to encourage parents to get on board – feedback is a great motivator.
Peer eco-pressure Pupils at Gillygooley primary school in Northern Ireland rose to the challenge to “police” energy waste and patrolled classrooms with energy monitors. Spot checks revealed printers and computer screens were often left on, and teachers were chastised. Pupils surveyed awareness of energy waste among the lower ranks of the school and followed up with a whole-school assembly and a regularly updated blog. Some schools recommend a “lights out” day, with pupil teams charged to check empty classrooms, switching off appliances that aren’t in use, checking for leaking taps and thermostats set too high. Following up these activities with a calculation of how much energy has been saved can be inspirational – some primaries say they’ve managed to halve their energy use. Occasional challenges can add a novel twist: walk-to-school week, no-waste lunches, in-school recycling projects or an e-waste day
Pupils now wear ‘eco‑blazers’ made entirely from plastic drinking bottles where pupils bring in old phones, gadgets and batteries for recycling. Some schemes give vouchers towards school equipment in exchange for recycled materials. Junk modelling features high in the younger ranks of schools. Some challenge pupils to create vast monsters or characters from books – think Gruffalos from plastic bottles and papier-mâché, or parachutes modelled from plastic bags. And pupils in Southampton’s King Edward VI school now wear “eco blazers” made
entirely from non-biodegradable plastic drinking bottles.
Green living And there’s no need to let efforts lapse at the school gates, say activists. The Sky Rainforest Rescue footprint calculator might surprise you – answer five minutes’ of questions to discover the impact of your lifestyle on our planet. Then for seven days you’ll receive simple tips by email. “The more creative the idea, the more children are engaged,” says Kirstie Green, a teacher who coordinates environmental initiatives at St Bede Church of England primary school in Hampshire. “They really love the challenges. The staff, pupils and parents are all on board.”
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The Guardian | Tuesday 22 October 2013
The Amazon and us
A delicate balance Rainforest experts tell Helena Pozniak about the threats to one of our greatest natural resources
throughout the entire Amazon and defend protected areas.”
Looking ahead
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ccording to Dr Toby Gardner, a conservation scientist at the University of Cambridge, the Amazon stands at a crossroads. “We need to understand how everything is connected,” he says. “In an ideal world, the forest would be celebrated not only through protected parks but through incentives such as compensation and market premiums for farmers, with the foresters and farmers acting as proud stewards of one of the earth’s greatest natural resources.” People are a major factor. “People who live in the Amazon are among the poorest in Latin America,” says Damian Fleming, head of programmes, Brazil and Amazon, at WWF-UK. “They need support and incentives to do the right thing. But long-term, sustained government support is crucial, otherwise you just get a collection of wellmeaning projects.” And there’s an element of realism that needs to be acknowledged. No one cuts down the rainforests for fun, says Dr John Hemming, anthropologist and author, but deforestation is driven by demand for beef, soya and timber, and exports are bound to continue. “We can’t keep every last bit of rainforest intact but I’d like to see some serious respect for the indigenous and environmental reserves which exist now. Brazil and other countries have done very well in creating these.” That’s something which Dr Jos Barlow, an ecologist at Lancaster
Laws to protect the Amazon have not stopped deforestation
University, agrees with. “In some areas, charities and local government have collaborated to clarify the law and stop deforestation,” he says. “Our next challenge is to expand this
The twin threats of cattle farming, one of the greatest causes of deforestation, and badly planned or illegal dams risk upsetting the Amazon’s ecosystem and its related services. “It’s a delicate balance,” says Cláudio Maretti, Living Amazon Initiative leader, WWF. “We need to consider biodiversity when planning energy policy, and we need a longer-term view from the nine countries of the Amazon, with a united approach to sustainable development.” “I’d see climate and water funds and pollution management systems in place,” concludes Dr Gardner, “with payments from national and international beneficiaries of the services the Amazon provides now for free. I hope the Amazon will retain the greatest expanse of rainforest on the planet and be supported by innovative organisations that can unite people, governments and the private sector.”
How can I help? Take Sky Rainforest Rescue’s “forest friendly” pledge – how you live as a consumer can make a real difference to the survival of our rainforests.
Register your schools for I Love Amazon Schools and use the free primary school resources to explore the rainforest across the curriculum, suitable for five- to 11-year-olds.
Recycle your phones, gadgets and computers and don’t renew them so often – they contain metals and minerals mined at the cost of deforestation. Ask your school to use only paper and wood furniture from legal and well-managed forests – look for the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label. Save energy. Walk or cycle rather than drive, turn off lights, don’t leave devices on standby, don’t overheat
WORKING TOGETHER TO HELP SAVE 1 BILLION TREES
Help keep the rainforest standing or lose it forever Pledge now to be forest-friendly for I Love Amazon Week, 21-27 October
sky.com/rainforestrescue
Top tropics apps Here are some of the iPhone/iPad/Android apps that can help you learn about the rainforest: Amazon Rainforest Discovery This bilingual app (in English and Spanish) combines education and game-playing to reveal fascinating facts about 30 rainforest animals. Britannica Kids: Rainforests Encyclopaedic knowledge goes digital with this colourful and fun addition to the Britannica Kids series. It lets you explore the rainforest through games, images, videos and articles. Rainforest Survival challenge Designed by Rainforest Alliance and Stepping Stones Museum for Children, this game-based app is aimed at eight to 12-year-olds, and challenges students on the interconnection between plants and animals in the rainforest. Rainforest Animals Bible Containing details of more than 250 species in the world’s rainforests, this app is for those who care about important ecosystems.
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rooms – greenhouse gases are one of the greatest threats to the Amazon. Cut waste. Bring packed lunches in reusable containers and ask to recycle plastics, tins and paper at school and home. Teachers could print handouts on both sides and pupils could share teaching resources. Eat well and eat less meat. Ask your school to use local food or look for Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance symbols. Choose products with “sustainable palm oil” to avoid palm oil from land that was once rainforest.