Nearly half of the planet's original supply of trees are gone. From that small supply, only 10% is protected from illegal logging. In the minute it takes you to read this page, something like 60 football fields worth of trees will be cut down.
You can join a local volunteer group and help cleanup forests by pruning old trees and planting young trees. Here is a guide on How to Plant a Tree. You ca n also give continuous care to existing trees. By doing this, the forests will continue to thrive. To join one of these local groups, you can discuss it with your parent(s) and/or guardian(s). In the USA, you could find a local group like Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. You could also join or create a group at your local church, synagogue or mosque.
When you go on walks through the forests, make sure to stay on the paths. If you go off the paths, you can damage trees and get lost.
Your local neighborhood can talk to your city’s arborist (tree care specialist) about when trees should be cut down or the branches cut off. Arborist s are trained to promote tree health, figure out tree problems and take measures to correct them. Arboriculture is the art, science, technology and business of tree care. Arboriculture is practiced by arborists. This can prevent older trees from being cut down before they absolutely have to be. If the neighborhood doesn’t like what the arborist is doing, for example, cutting too many trees with no reason, they can go straight to the head of the community and talk to her/him about it.
Here are a couple of things that are going on around the world. Here's one way you can help. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has a campaign that you can join. The name of their worldwide campaign is Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign. Their goal is to plant one billion trees by the end of 2007! You (along with an adult) can try to get businesses and neighbors in your community to make a pledge to plant a tree.
The Uwasu Rainforest Reserve is in the middle of the Amazon in Brazil and is a pretty new project. The reserve has 2,000 hectares, and they want to expand it to more than 360,000 acres. This reserve is special because it is home to white water flooded, black water flooded and terra firme forests.
 Cloud forests are a unique type of rainforest located on mountains and are always covered with mist. These forests can take a thousand years to form. A cloud forest called the Monteverde Cloud Forest has 42,000 acres of misty forest in Costa Rica.
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|Trees In the Community| |Electricity In the Community|
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Online Resources
Douglas, David. "An Antidote To Deforestation: Plant A Tree." Christian Science Monitor 9 August 1996: page 18. Searchasaurus. 27 February 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com>.
"Forestry." World Wildlife Federation. 17 February 2007 <http://www.worldwildlife.org/forests/>.
Maycock, Paul F. "Forest." World Book Online Reference Center. 27 February 2007.
<http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=ar204660>.
Parker, George R. "Forestry" World Book Online Reference Center. 2007. 27 February 2007. <http://www.worldbookonline.com>
"Protecting Forests." World Wildlife Federation. 17 February 2007 <http://www.worldwildlife.org/involved/consumer/pf.cfm>.
“Ten Reasons We Plant Trees.” American Forests. 4 February 2007 <http://www.americanforests.org>.
“Tree.” Wikipedia. 27 February, 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree>.
Wendell, Berry. “Woods.” Spirit of Trees. 26 February 2007 <http://www.spiritoftrees.org>.
Images
Permission to use all of the photographs on this page is granted under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page> (March, 2007).
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