Rain Forest
Although a tropical rain forest is merely described as a region of tall trees with year-round warmth and plentiful rain, the definition goes much deeper. Tropical rain forests, jungles that receive at least eighty inches of rain in a year, maintain the natural balance of the world’s temperature and climate. Not only do they regulate climate and protect water supplies, but tropical rain forests nurture millions of species of animals, and provide homes for various tribes of people. The world’s tropical rain forests represent one of the most fragile and most diverse of all our natural ecosystems, yet are least understood by today’s society. Tropical rain forests are also by far the most threatened. There are several facts and statistics that are known about the ever-important rain forests that may be shocking to the newly interested researcher, like me. Tropical rain forests are located in warm and humid places near the Earth’s equator. The daily temperature averages in at seventy-five degrees, with twelve hours of sun shining every day in the tropics. Average annual rainfall is between eighty and one hundred inches, while some forests receive four hundred inches of rain.
