The Earth can’t survive without rain forest. Rain forests pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which helps prevent global warming. Unfortunately, the world is losing a lot of its rain forest as people clear land for farming and housing in underdeveloped parts of the world where farmers are poor and food is scarce.
But there’s hope. In Brazil, a project is in the works to replant deforested areas of rainforest with trees from which farmers can make money, like cacao trees, whose fruit is used to make chocolate. This concept also translates into helping to save the remaining rain forest. This is done by planting valuable cacao trees among the existing trees of the rapidly shrinking rain forest, ultimately making it more profitable for farmers and local communities to maintain the rain forest than to cut down its trees. This also helps them to avoid the use of dangerous pesticides or fertilizers in the process, because the rain forest naturally provides nutrients and protection for its trees.
