Have fun while you visit our Tour de Forest series, treading some new trails in one of our favourite local forests. You'll be seeing the forest in all its stages, from fresh clearcut, through 6-7 year growth, 40 year mature forest, and you'll even see an old growth cedar. Please help to protect the environment by staying on the trails, especially in the newly clear cut areas, as this is when the recovering forest is particularly sensitive.
Each cache in this series bears the name of a UNESCO World Heritage forest somewhere in the world. Take some time to read about each of these special places. Ranging in size from 18 hectares (Vallée de Mai, Seychelles), to 8.8 million hectares (Lake Baikal, Russian Federation), UNESCO World Heritage forest sites have a total surface area of over 75 million hectares.
Forests cover nearly a third of all land on Earth, providing vital organic infrastructure for some of the planet's densest, most diverse collections of life. They support countless species, including our own, yet we often seem oblivious of that. Humans now clear millions of acres from natural forests every year, especially in the tropics, letting deforestation threaten some of Earth's most valuable ecosystems.
We tend to take forests for granted, underestimating how indispensable they still are for everyone on the planet. That would quickly change if they all disappeared, but since humanity might not survive that scenario, the lesson wouldn't be very useful by then. As the Once-Ler finally realizes in Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax," a crisis like deforestation depends on indifference. "UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot," Seuss wrote, "nothing is going to get better. It's not."
In hopes of shedding more light on what forests do for us, and how little we can afford to lose them, here are 21 reasons why forests are so important.
And it’s just plain relaxing to spend time in any of them — here are 11 scientific reasons why that’s true.
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Daintree Rainforest
The Daintree Rainforest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is located in North Queensland, Australia– the continent where forest wildlife goes to get away from it all.
Sprawling across 450 square miles, Daintree is Australia’s oldest forest: It is believed to have survived over 100 million years.
The Daintree River, cutting through the rainforest, is replete with animals, with particular highlight given to the crocs and pythons.
While the Amazonian rainforest may technically have more diverse plant life, Daintree has the greatest number of rare flora of all the beautiful forests on this list.
Another knockout feature of visiting the Daintree Rainforest is that it has the unique characteristic of bordering another UNESCO site, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.