World Rainforest Day 2021: Learn about world’s top 10 rainforests, and their key highlights

Every year, 22 June is observed as World Rainforest Day, to celebrate rainforests across the world and work towards their preservation. According to worldrainforestday.org, 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions is caused by deforestation, which accelerates climate change. World Rainforest Day aims to draw the attention of the people towards the measures they can take to prevent the same.

What are the world’s top 10 rainforests?

On this World Rainforest Day, let us take a look at the top 10 rainforests of the world:

1. Amazon Rainforest: Located in South America, it is the world’s largest rainforest. It is also the forest that has the highest annual area of forest loss. As many as 30 million hectares of primary forest were cleared from 2002 to 2019.
2. Sundaland: As much as 73 percent of the forest is in Indonesia and 26 percent in Malaysia. However, between 2002 and 2019, it lost the world’s highest primary forest cover.
3. Chocó-Darien: This is the world’s wettest rainforest. Its tree cover is 15.6 million hectares. Seventy-nine percent of this rainforest is in Colombia, 13 percent in Panama, and eight percent in Ecuador.
4. Atlantic Forest: In 2020, this forest had a tree cover of 89 million hectares. The primary forest is 9.3 million hectares. Species found in this rainforest are howler monkeys, puma, jaguar, and golden lion tamarin.
5. Daintree: Situated in North Queensland, the rainforest has 30 percent of Australia’s reptile species, frogs, and marsupials. It is the place where the rainforest meets the reef.
6. Montecristo Cloud Forest: This El Salvador’s rainforest is home to flora and fauna. The rainforest has oaks, laurels, spider monkeys, toucans, ferns, orchids, owls, anteaters, and pumas.
7. Sapo National Park: Located in Liberia, this is one of the last places that has a virgin rainforest. The Sapo National Park spans 1,80,400 hectares, as per Fauna & Flora International. The rainforest has several vulnerable and endangered species including pygmy hippopotamus, African forest elephants, and West African chimpanzees.
8. Andean Cloud Forests: Ecuador’s rainforest is home to jaguar, howler monkey, spectacled bear, sloth, puma, and several other animals. The Andean cloud forests are facing threats from activities like farming, mining, and logging.
9. Sinharaja Forest: A UNESCO World Heritage site, this rainforest is Sri Lanka’s last lowland wet forest. The Sinharaja Forest has 6,092 hectares of forest reserve. As much as 2,772 hectares of its area is under a proposed forest reserve.
10. Monteverde Reserve: This is one of the world’s important rainforests located in Costa Rica. It has a hundred mammal species. There are more than two thousand plant species, including over 400 different types of orchids The Monteverde Reserve is located in the Sierra de Tilarán and is home to 2.5 percent of the world’s biodiversity; about 10 percent of its flora is endemic.