What are the oldest trees in the rainforest?
Asked by Paula, California, USA By Heidi Dragoo Most of the old trees in the rainforest were cleared long ago for timber or farming. The oldest trees I have seen while I have been in the rainforest are the giant red cedar trees. There are very few left, but there are several that are protected, and they are amazing! They are so big they made me feel tiny! It is hard to imagine what the rainforest looked like a hundred years ago when these trees still dominated the canopy. Why are the rainforests so important? Asked by Kevin, Florida, USA By Christina Felson Rainforests are important because they contain a great amount of biodiversity. For example, rainforests cover only one-tenth of one percent of the land in Australia, but they hold 43 percent of the continent s animal species, including some that can exist nowhere else. If we continue to destroy rainforests, we may eliminate the only habitat some animals can live in. Without this habitat, these animals are likely to go extinct before
