Your Powerful Questions Answered

Thank you to all of you who have sent in your powerful questions for our team of Rainforest Experts to answer. They have had great fun answering your questions and we will now be posting some answers on our site every week between now and Christmas. You will find them all on this page!

This week’s questions have been answered by Bear Grylls and Don Murray.

Bear Grylls 

Bear is a man who has always loved adventure. He was the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest, aged only 23, and has since led ground-breaking expeditions across the world. He has written many books about his exploits and adventures and in 2009 Bear was voted by the Scouts to become their Chief Scout and figurehead to 28 million Scouts worldwide. 

Visit www.beargrylls.com

NEW!
What worries you most about the rainforest? - Jack

An area of rainforest the size of a football pitch is cut down every 4 SECONDS. Losing them as rapidly as we are means that the lungs of the world are dying. Without lungs we die - and the repercussions are immense and will affect us all. Drought, typhoons, rising sea levels, hurricanes, floods and catastrophic homelessness. The time to act is now and the time to make a stand is now. Well done and thanks for supporting this cause.

What type of rainforest spider has killed the most people? – Xavier, Year 6

Probably the The Brazilian Wandering Spider, which is an extremely aggressive and poisonous brute. A bite from this spider can take out a human being is 25 mins if not treated immediately. It can grow to have a leg span of up to 5 inches, and they are extremely fast moving with distinctive red jaws that they show when they are angered. 

Is the piranha fish the most dangerous fish in the rainforest? - Emily, Year 6

No - although they can kill you very fast if you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time! I.e. if the river level is low and food is scarce- then they strip a carcass literally in seconds. But nothing is worse than the candiru... This fish is attracted by the smell of human urine. After tasting the urine the candiru may follow the urine stream back to the human. It then swims up the urethra and uses its spines to manifest itself somewhere in the urinary tract. After having spread the spines like an umbrella the candiru finally starts to draw blood... bad way to start a day!

How are you going to help the rainforests? - Ryan, Year 6

Remind people every day that we must take a stand. My Mum used to say: If it is to be it is up to me. In other words we mustn't just talk we must do something! I support The Prince's Rainforest's Project campaign as much as I can with time, contacts and promotion and also am very involved with a charity called RARE that educates locals at a ground roots level on conservation.

Don Murray 

Don Murray is the Curator of the Rainforest Biome at the Eden Project - the person in charge of deciding what goes inside it. He is Scottish and now lives in Cornwall near the Eden Project. He has researched plants and rainforest conservation for
22 years, working mainly in the tree canopies of Central and South American rainforests.

Visit the Eden Project website at www.edenproject.com

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What is the most poisonous plant in a rainforest? – Hannah, Year 6 

You would really have to be unlucky to be poisoned by a plant but probably for humans the Ca­stor Bean plant (Ricinus communis­) from Africa would be at the top of my list. Funnily enough it is widely cultivated for its castor oil and is also used as an ornamental plant. Neither of these uses would give you any idea that this plant contains a deadly substance called ricin.  

NEW!
Is there any other way for you to get the resources you need without tearing down the much needed rainforest and destroying the habitats of the animals living there? – Westcliff High School for Girls

Of course! The first thing we need to think about is, “how many resources do we really need?” We are incredibly wasteful as a species so by living more efficiently we could all save resources. We can also choose what we buy and where we buy it, so hunt around for the most sustainable option and if more people do it eventually it will become the normal thing to do. One thing we can all do is to reduce the amount of meat in our diets as lots of rainforest is cut down to raise cattle or grow food for animals.  

NEW!
Where did the rainforest go? What would happen if there was no rainforest left? – Westcliff High School for Girls

There is still rainforest left, so it’s not too late. But it is vanishing at an alarming rate. We must be careful and not replace real forests with plantations that can’t sustain wildlife and people. If there is no rainforest left then we will have lost some of the most important water sources and purifiers. We will have lost an important buffer between the atmosphere and the surface of the earth and also one of our great protectors against a changing climate. Forests also store vast amounts of carbon, which if cut down will be released into the atmosphere: you can think about rainforests as the sun cream for the planet. We will have lost homes for plants, animals and people that can’t live anywhere else and above all we will have lost great beauty that we can never replace. Our lives will be a lot poorer for it.

What is the tallest tree species in rainforests?  - Sarah, Year 4

The giant emergent trees like the Kapok (Ceiba pentandra) are huge, exceeding heights of 65 metres. They tower above the surrounding canopy and as they are often covered with epiphytes. I love them.

Why aren't more trees being cut down in a sustainable way? – Westcliff High School for Girls 

There are lots of different reasons. It’s partly because most of the world’s rainforests are found in poor countries. This means the land and labour is cheap and there are sometimes fewer regulations about cutting down very old forests. All of this makes cutting down trees very easy. Better, more sustainable, forestry – despite being good for the planet – has been viewed as a more expensive option. We need better forestry practices all over the world so there is less need to cut down old forests. But we must remember lots of richer countries have already cut down their trees, like in the UK , but we still have a demand for the wood and resources so we have just exported the problem somewhere else. 

How tall was the tallest tree that you have climbed? – Thomas, Year 4

It was a Kapok (Ceiba pentandra) in the Peruvian Amazon and it must have been around about 60 metres. I can’t say for certain though but as my legs started to wobble it must have been quite high!

How old is the Amazon rainforest? – Maria, Year 3

It’s hard to know exactly but it is probably at least 50 million years old. But it has not always looked exactly the same as it does now. Sometimes it has been bigger and other times smaller (like during the last Ice Age). But it has always been, and hopefully always will be, a place where plants, wildlife and more recently people can survive and thrive.

Why is it still legal to cut down trees? – Year 9, Westcliff High School for Girls

Because people need trees - and lots of other natural resources too – which are important for economies around the world. We need trees to build, to make paper, to make furniture and so on. People also cut down trees so they can replace it with animals and crops, which has been seen as a good use of land. What is important is we cut down the right trees in a way that it doesn’t harm us and the planet. It is not wrong to cut down trees. But it is not cool to cut down the wrong trees, like those in old rainforests.