Of Forests and Men

In honour of the International Year Forests 2011

Save the Forests don't let 'The essential being destroyed to produce the superfluous'

• INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF FORESTS - 2011
• OF FORESTS AND MEN
• a short film by: Directed by:Yann Arthus-Bertrand
• written by: GoodPlanet and Isabelle Delannoy
• 
  
• Trees first appeared on Earth more than 380 million years ago.
• But what do we know of them?
• They have changed the face of continents.
• From arid rock, they have brought forth the fertile lands we know today.
• A tree never moves, but finds the food it needs where it's planted.
• To live and grow, it takes in water, light, energy and carbon dioxide from the air.
• The tree draws its raw materials from the environment
• and turns them into leaves, branches and trunk.
• At the same time, a tree gives off an abundance of the substance
• that has allowed such a variety of life forms to proliferate.
• Oxygen.
• The planet's forests are home to more than half of its species.
• Every year, we discover hitherto unknown insects, plants and genes.
• Life, whose very existence we had not suspected.
• Our food, our remedies and our scientific and technological research
• depend on that biodiversity.
• Man has always gained his livelihood from the forest,
• which we transform and destroy.
• Half of the forest that existed at the dawn of agriculture has since been destroyed.
• Our model has been to strive for constant growth.
• Since 1950 the world population has risen nearly threefold,
• whereas our consumption of meat is up more than fivefold.
• Paper, by sixfold.
• Our tools are on a different scale.
• We are cutting trees down by the million
• to plant soybeans and to produce millions of tons of meat.
• Forests are being replaced by stands of eucalyptus
• more profitable for the paper industry.
• And by oil palms, more profitable for the agro-food business.
• Coastal mangrove forests have shrunk in the area by another 20% over the last 30 years.
• One of the main culprits, is shrimp and fish farming.
• However, deforestation can also be a matter of survival.
• 2 billion people cut down forests to make charcoal,
• and to feed their families through slash and burn agriculture.
• Over the past 60 years, we have inflicted more rapid degradation on the planet
• than in all of human history.
• When forests are cleared it is not just animals that are endangered.
• Is the essential being destroyed to produce the superfluous?
• It doesn't have to be that way.
• Woodlands still make up nearly 1/3 of the planet's total land area.
• The world over - men and women - are fighting to protect it.
• Villagers, scientists, associations, governments
• are all sounding the alarm and proposing alternatives.
• For other choices do exist.
• Through understanding, education and information
• we are finding that forests can continue to provide a livelihood
• if only we alter our mindset.
• Trees are living things.
• And we are constantly learning more about them.
• Half of our medications come from the plant kingdom.
• The human body seems to recognize and be healed
• by remedies derived from plants.
• Our cells speak the same language.
• We are of the same family.
• Plants can detect the presence of parasites and predators,
• their underground biomass.
• Their roots may be equal to what we see above ground.
• They create networks, exchange electrical and chemical signals
• and enter into cooperative arrangements.
• There is so much left to discover about plant intelligence.
• Do we realize that water and forests are inseparable?
• Forests filter, store or digest pollutants.
• They are like sponges.
• Absorbing water during floods, and giving it back during droughts.
• Rainfall is born of forests.
• Through transpiration the water absorbed by tree roots is given off as water vapor.
• The trees also produce substances that seed the clouds.
• And the vapor, condensing, becomes flowing, life-giving, water.
• Plant life bonds water, air, earth and sunlight.
• It forms the cornerstone of the whole living ecology we all depend on.
• Forests are the guardians of climate.
• They store more carbon than is contained in the earth's entire atmosphere.
• 300 million people live in forests the world over.
• 1.6 billion - or nearly 1 in every 4 humans -
• are directly dependent on the forest for their daily livelihood.
• And 7 billion people - in other words all of us -
• rely on all the benefits the forests bestow.
• They produce the food we eat, the water we drink,
• the air we breathe,
• and the medications that maintain our health.
• Take a close look at the forests.
• We and the forests are one.
• We have always needed them,
• and today, they need us.
• Let us live in brotherhood like a forest, standing tall, like a mighty tree.

• Free Educational Forest Posters at www.goodplanet.org
• INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF FORESTS - 2011
• Directed by:Yann Arthus-Bertrand