Save the rainforest e.V.: Conservation of the Intag mountain cloud forests in Ecuador
The rainforests of the mountains near Intag north from Quito are threatened of the destruction by mine concerns that want to produce copper and gold, there. With the help of donations, more than 2000 hectare of the rainforest were already bought to protect them from exploitation. The premises were assigned to the villages and declared as municipal woods. Together, the farmers take responsibility for the protection of their woods and sustainable forms of their use.
Even if they originally were at least twice as large on our planet, today only about two percent of the earth’s surface or six percent of the land is covered by rainforests and serves as living space for millions of animal and plant species, which of them most are not explored until now.
Even if the rainforests of the several continents differ in their species, the configuration of the ground or the density of the population, the worldwide main reasons for the destruction are quite similar: brand-clearing to create agricultural used area and pastures for cattle, transformation from woods into palm tree-, banana- or coffee-plantations, exploitation of natural resources like iron-ore, gold or gas, the construction of dams for the production of energy and the commercial cut of timber.
The organisation “Rettet den Regenwald e.V.” was founded in 1986 and stands up effectively for the international protection of the rain forests.