One-tenth of the world s tree species face extinction. Twenty million hectares of the Earth s old growth forests will be degraded or destroyed by 2000. These ancient ecosystems are disappearing before they can even be defined, let alone preserved or studied. By area, temperate old growth forests contain over twice the biomass of the lushest tropical forests. Harvesting one hectare of an ancient forest adds more than 1,100 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Ecosystems are the mainstay of all life on Earth.
Without the intricate web of organisms and their relationships that make up each ecosystem, the living world would heave a tremendous sigh and fade away, taking all of our human aspirations along with it. Each species of plants and animals in an ecosystem is essential to its stability. But with one in every eight plant species on Earth at risk of extinction, even the most robust of ecosystems is in danger. The Earth is bleeding at an alarming rate which ecologists call the sixth mass extinction era. Keep in mind the fifth extinction era eliminated the great dinosaurs.