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For the last couple of decades, our communities’ awareness and focus on the increasing deforestation and natural disasters have skyrocketed quite a bit. Students, politicians, celebrities, and corporations are being forced to face the facts: we’re losing our forests and even ecosystems at an alarming rate. Nonprofit corporations are working around the clock to stop the damage already in motion. Ecosia is one of these corporations. Ecosia is a search engine, like Google and Bing, which uses internet searches to finance planting trees all over the world. Simply put, this is how Ecosia works: patrons search, search advertising companies pay Ecosia, then Ecosia plants trees with the money from the companies. To make sure they can be held accountable for every tree they plant, Ecosia willingly publicizes their financial reports and tree-planting receipts. This team is working with many local organizations with plant sites in the Pacific Islands, South, and Central America and Africa. A few of their current projects are in Madagascar, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Kenya, Uganda, and Haiti. Since the wildfires in Australia have been exceedingly brutal, Ecosia has decided that “On Thursday, January 23, all Ecosia searches will plant trees in Australia” says the Ecosia blog. Their podcast talks about this project in more detail. 📷
Whereas Ecosia uses the internet directly for their cause, various nonprofits adopt different methods to help our dying forests and ecosystems. In the Amazon rainforest, where around 17 percent of its forest has been lost in the last 50 years, Amazon Watch and Amazon Aid Foundation are doing all they can to support the forest and people. Amazon Watch is working with indigenous people of the Amazon to protect their homes and way of life. With a more creative approach, Amazon Aid Foundation is presenting movies, music, and media that showcase rainforest preservation concepts. Internationally, the Center for Biological Diversity Inc and the Alliance for International Reforestation movements work diligently to affect positive change in human behavior that will save woodland areas globally. Center for Biological Diversity Inc is working to help decrease the use of pesticides, replacing the use of lead in the environment, fighting the effects of coal on the environment and more. Regionally, the Alliance for International Reforestation is working with low-income rural families in Central America to curb hunger and malnutrition while still using farming techniques that prevent erosion and mudslides. While these organizations are fighting problems that have been around for decades, recently new disasters have arisen in need of attention.
As of right now, Australia’s terrain and populations of animals, plants, and humans are being attacked by record-breakingly high temperatures and fires. From late July till now, every state in Australia has been hit with raging fires. Most of the time the fires are caused by lightning strikes in areas of intense dryness and heat during Australia’s dry season, however, some were set intentionally by people starting bushfires. The fires have passed through national parks, wooded areas, bushland, suburbs and cities alike. Not one mile of Australia has been left unaffected by the fires-directly or indirectly. The fires has torched 17.9 million acres and counting. As of January 13, thousands of homes in New South Wales, just one state in Australia, have been totally destroyed or partially damaged. These fires have killed quite a bit of the animal and plant population. But until all the fires have stopped burning, ecologists and researchers can not adequately say how vast the destruction has spread. Australians have to use websites, radio broadcasts, phone call warnings, and local television stations to stay ahead of the flame outbreak. For example, MyFireWatch uses satellite images of hotspots-which are usually fires. It updates every couple of hours. It should not be used instead of local emergency services if they are available. Although we aren’t there in Australia, South Gwinnett students, faculty and community can still assist in the fight against the fires. We can make sure we understand why the fires have been so intense and spread the word so that future fires can be prevented. We also need to be aware of the many donations being taken in to be able to put out the fires, house people and animals who lost their homes and pay for the medical treatment of every person and animal affected by the fire. Australian Red Cross, Salvation Army Australia, the NSW Rural Fire Service, and the St. Vincent de Paul Society Australia are all well-known donation options.
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Student Rebecca Buchanan makes rubber band koala and flower pencil in remembrance of the lost animals of Australia’s wildfires.
In all honesty, our acknowledgment of the problems of our forests and our living populations in Australia is a great step in the right direction. Just be aware of the fires, and how widespread they are. It is not a small matter to sweep under the rug just because we are not living in Australia or anywhere else with deforestation issues.
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