Australia is the smallest continent. It has 134 million hectares of forest, approximately 17% of Australia’s land area. Tropical and subtropical rainforests are found in northern and eastern Australia in the wet coastal areas. Daintree Rainforest encompasses an area of approximately 1,200 square kilometers, from the Daintree River north to Cooktown and west to the Great Divide, representing the single largest block of tropical rainforest in Australia. It is home to nearly 30 million species including rare and endangered species of plants and animals.
But the rainforest is contracted due to changes in climatic conditions, emerging as a threat to plants and animals.
Climate change and the Daintree rainforest
Climate change is one of the major threats to the ecosystem and the Daintree rainforest is one of them. Once sufficiently degraded, the forest will lose its ability to generate its own rainfall, thereby preventing the rainforest ecosystem from being able to exist at all.
Studies show that since 1980 a decrease in annual rainfall due to the changing climate has created a decline in agricultural products. A rise in global temperatures is causing trees and plants to produce fruit either earlier or later than before causing throwing off the species that feed on them, including humans. This results in food shortages for animals. No one can survive without food. Due to harsh climate conditions, species are going to try to follow those climates that are suitable for them rather than adapting to new ones. For many species, this requires moving upslope — but at a certain point, there will be no place left where they can find suitable climate conditions for them, which is what we call the ‘escalator to extinction.
Conserving the ecosystem
Since plants and animals are a very important part of our ecosystem and they are at the edge of extinction due to some human activities as well as climate change so it is important to take a few major steps to conserve them. Creating national parks or wildlife sanctuaries will not help alone. Supporting these and implementing them in the government’s decisions regarding these will help. In order to protect those species, it is important to maintain a suitable environment for them, only then they will survive and we will be able to conserve them.
Another major threat to the ecosystem is the greed of human beings. Recently the test for 5G has led to harmful impacts on animals and birds. If we start using 5G, it is sure that we are going to lose some of our animals and bird species. In order to protect them, it is important for human beings to control their greed. Earth is not a home to human beings only but also to millions of plants and animals so it is important to adapt only those changes which are not harmful to other species.
