Forests cover one third of all the land on earth. The major forest biomes, or habitats, of the world are tropical, temperate and boreal, based on which latitude they are located at.
Forests are the largest land-based ecosystems and contain more species of animals and plants than anywhere else on earth. They are made up of a complicated web of life that includes an unimaginable number of trees, flowers, ferns, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, bacteria and all kinds of other life.
Indigenous peoples also inhabit many of the world’s forests, living in traditional ways that maintain the health of the forests that they depend on for survival. Sadly, all forest types are being destroyed at an alarming rate, with more than 100 species of plants and animals disappearing from the planet on a daily basis. Only 20 percent of the world’s old growth forests (which are forests that are in their natural state, having not been damaged by human activity) are left. They are found mostly in the tropical rainforests of Brazil and the boreal forests of Canada and Russia.