Rainforest

Rainforests are key to the health of our world; they maintain the water and air cycles, store carbon and have yielded countless numbers of medical drugs.

We have already destroyed half their area, and we need urgently to save the half that’s left. Rainforest explains why – and how.

Inspiring action

Rainforests are the lungs of our planet – regulators of the Earth’s temperature and weather. They are also home to 50% of the world’s animals and plants, which for centuries have been the source of many of our key medicines.

And yet we’ve all heard of their systematic destruction; the raising of trees to make way for plantations of oil palms or cattle, the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples and the corruption that leads to illegal logging and pollution.

But this is the full story you’ve never heard: an in-depth, wide-ranging, first-hand narrative that not only looks at the state of the world’s tropical rainforests today and the implications arising from their continuing decline, but also at what is being done, and can be done in future, to protect the forests and the 1.6 billion people that depend upon them.

It is inspirational, too, in its descriptions of the rainforest’s remarkable birds and plants – and its indigenous people.

‘People take action when they are inspired. And this is exactly what Tony’s book does. It is an incredible, first-hand account of one of the most important environment battles of our time, one that we simply cannot afford to lose. Because a fight for the rainforests is a fight for planet earth. And for the peoples of the world.’

ERIK SOLHEIM
Head of the United Nations Environment Programme

A personal story

Rainforest (£16.99, Profile Books) is a personal story, drawing on Tony Juniper’s many years’ experience at the frontline of the fight to save the rainforests. It explains the science and history of the campaigns to protect and restore the world’s rainforests, and what it has felt like to be there amid the conflicts and dilemmas.

Dr Tony Juniper is Britain’s best known environmental campaigner. He has
published several successful and award-winning books including the Sunday Times bestseller What Has Nature ever done for us? and Saving Planet Earth.

He has worked on efforts to conserve tropical forests for more than 30 years, including with BirdLife International, Friends of the Earth (where he served as director) and as an advisor to The Prince’s Rainforests Project. He is currently executive director for advocacy and campaigns at the WWF.