Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Harking.

Today, we're going to be learning about people's use of the rainforest.

Lots of people use the rainforest for many different reasons, including you and I.

Lots of products rely on minerals and resources that come from the rainforest.

There are many impacts caused by the fact that people do use the rainforest so much, so we need to understand these fully.

Today's lesson is people's use of the rainforest taken from the forest biomes unit, "Why are forests so important?" Our outcome today is to describe different ways people use tropical rainforest and explain the impacts of deforestation.

We have some key words now which are useful to understand before we enter the lesson.

If any of these are words that you're not sure about, you may want to pause the video and take a note of the definition.

Our first word is Indigenous.

We should use a capital I for Indigenous when we're writing.

Indigenous people are the original inhabitants of a place rather than people who moved there from somewhere else.

Commercial is our next word.

This is related to the making of money from buying or selling things.

Economy, is the way money in a particular area is made and spent.

And erosion, is the process of the earth's surface.

For example, rock or soil being worn away and transported from its original site.

Remember, you can pause the video now if you would like to note any down.

The first section of our lesson is on "Wow do people use tropical rainforest?" Then we'll move on to "What are the impacts of deforestation?" So our first section now, "How do people use the tropical rainforest?" The rainforest has incredible value to different groups of people.

We can break up how people interact with the rainforest by looking at Indigenous groups who often live in or near the rainforest and may rely on it to meet their needs, including food, medicine, and shelter.

There's also the modern uses of the rainforest, which often involve using the rainforest resources or land for economic purposes to generate profit.

So examples include logging, mining, and commercial farming.

If we look at Indigenous groups in a little more detail, we can see the Indigenous groups have lived in the tropical rainforest for thousands of years.

Some Indigenous groups still live in very traditional ways and choose to be separate from the rest of the world.

Some live far from the tropical rainforest as they or their ancestors have been displaced from their land.

Many lies somewhere in between these two extremes.

We're going to do a quick check for understanding now.

Is it true or false? All Indigenous people live in tiny villages completely cut off from the surrounding world.

Well done.

That is false.

Definitely not true.

Some Indigenous groups do still live in very traditional ways and separately from the rest of the world.

So it is true for some people, however, some Indigenous people live far from the tropical rainforest as they or their ancestors have been displaced from their land.

And many lie somewhere in between these two extremes.

Indigenous relationships with the rainforest include hunting, fishing, and foraging, spiritual and cultural practises, traditional knowledge systems. Let's take a look at these one by one.

Many Indigenous communities hunt, fish, and forage in the rainforest.

So the Baka people of the Congo Basin gather plants, fruits, nuts, and roots.

You can see them here in the photograph.

The Congo Basin is located here on our map of Africa.

These people are very skilled hunters using tracking and deep knowledge of animal behaviour to hunt small games such as monkeys, antelope, and birds.

They also fish using hand nets and damming.

Traditional subsistence farming in rainforests often involves shifting cultivation.

Shifting cultivation works like this.

Farmers will grow crops for two to three years in one area.

Then when the soil loses its nutrients, it's all been used up, they will repeat this process in new, more fertile area, while the farmed area recovers.

Then they will repeat this process in a new, more fertile area while the farmed area recovers.

Brilliant.

Let's see if you've understood that.

Let's do a quick check for understanding.

So Indigenous communities use the forest to.

You can pick any of the following answers.

Is it hunt, fish, and forage? Is it farm using small-scale shifting cultivation? Is it farm using large-scale commercial techniques? Which ones are correct? Well done.

It's A and B.

So if you've got either of those, well done.

If you've got both, very well done.

Indigenous communities have spiritual and cultural practises that are often connected to the forest.

For example, the Je'ba Baca, Indigenous people of Columbia, seen dancing here using traditional items in their clothing such as the feathers taken from the forest.

Indigenous people have vast traditional knowledge including that of plant medicinal use.

For example, this herbal healer in Darkuman, Ghana, has medicinal knowledge passed down through the generations.

You can see where she's located on the map here of Africa.

Quick check for understanding here.

Name one way in which Indigenous communities use the forest.

Well done.

You could have had any of the following.

Spiritual and cultural practises connected to the forest.

Hunting, fishing, and foraging.

Traditional farming.

And medicinal plant use and traditional knowledge systems. Modern uses of the rainforest need space, and rainforest is cleared in order to provide this.

Some examples of modern uses of the rainforest are commercial farming, mining, settlements, and medicine.

Commercial farming involves selling produce for a profit.

These products are often exported to other countries.

We have some examples of this here.

Palm oil from crops in Indonesia, and beef from cattle farming in Brazil.

Commercial farming differs from traditional methods as it tends to be.

Is it A, larger scale, B, smaller scale, C, crops are sold for a profit, or D, crops are grown for personal use? It can be more than one answer.

So the correct answer should be commercial farming differs from traditional methods as it tends to be larger scale and crops are sold for a profits.

Well done.

Mining is another important use of the tropical rainforest.

Open cast mining, as we can see here in the photograph, is often used to extract minerals such as gold, cobalt, and coltan from the earth.

Gold is a major mineral extracted from the Amazon rainforest.

Coltan is mined from the Congo Basin rainforest to be used in mobile phones.

In 2016, about 175,000 kilometres squared, that's 11% of the forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the DRC, was assigned for mining.

Many people work in the mining industry.

Medicine is our next use of tropical rainforest.

So, many medicines have been discovered through research of tropical rainforest species.

Often Indigenous knowledge of species is used as a starting point to discover cures.

One example is the rosy periwrinkle from Madagascar, which is used in chemotherapy to treat cancer.

The population is growing in many rainforest regions due to people moving to work in mines, farms, and other professions.

This means that more and more rainforest is being cleared to construct homes, roads, and services, meaning that settlements in these areas are growing.

Many people make a living from commercial farming, mining, medicine, and construction.

Without an income, families would not be able to afford necessities such as a home and food.

So it is really important that families and communities in these areas can actually benefit financially from the rainforest.

The taxes paid to the government by working people can be used to fund important services such as schools and hospitals.

Without those taxes, these services wouldn't be being funded properly.

Which of the following statements are correct? Select two.

Settlements are shrinking rapidly as the rainforest is cut down.

Indigenous knowledge is often used as a starting point to research new medicines.

Construction of homes, roads, and services is happening in rainforest due to population growth.

Well done.

We have both B and C as correct statements here.

The settlements are definitely not shrinking, they are growing.

Our practise task now.

Please get you create a spider diagram to explain ways in which humans use the rainforest.

The second part of this task is to then identify which of these ways are traditional methods.

You might want to create a key so that you could highlight or circle those that are traditional and separate those from the more modern practises.

Feel free to pause the video now.

Well done, everyone.

Here are some answers.

You may have got all of these.

You may have some of these.

You may have some different ones.

What I suggest you do now is edit your answers using my answers here.

We have spiritual and cultural practises, hunting, fishing, and foraging.

Traditional farming, such as shift in cultivation.

Medicinal plant use and traditional knowledge systems. And these are all the traditional use of the rainforest.

Then we also have commercial farming, discovering new medicine, building new settlements, and mining, which are our more modern uses of the rainforest.

We're now going to move on to the second section of the lesson.

"What are the impacts of deforestation?" Deforestation is the complete removal of trees.

For example, trees might be cut down or burnt to clear an area of forest.

We can see an example of this in the photograph here.

Deforestation is happening due to increased demand for resources and expanding settlements.

These resources bring economic benefit to countries, but it has an impact on the rainforests.

This is rapidly reducing the size of the rainforests.

An area the size of nearly 11 football pitches of tropical rainforest is lost every minute.

That's really a very shocking fact.

Take a moment to think about that.

Imagine the size of a football pitch that you know near you.

Times that by 11, so you've got 11 football pitches, and just in one minute that whole area has been cut down.

That's massive, isn't it? Let's do a quick check for understanding.

Can you fill in the gaps on these sentences? What is the chopping down or removal of trees to clear an area of forest? An area the size of nearly.

How many football pitches of tropical rainforest are lost every.

Is it every minute, every year, every day? Well done.

So we should have that deforestation is the chopping down and removal of trees to clear an area of forest.

An area the size of nearly 11 football pitches of tropical rainforests are lost every minute.

Did you get those right? Well done.

Great attempts.

Deforestation has many impacts on a country and more widely.

These include loss of carbon sinks, loss of habitats, soil erosion, and displaced people.

Let's have a look at these individually in more detail.

Firstly, a loss of carbon sinks.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air which helps to reduce the effects of global warming.

You can see this in the diagram with our leaf on the right-hand side.

Deforestation is a major cause of global warming.

In 2022, deforestation in the Amazon resulted in the release of over the equivalent of 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, about the same as all the cars in the USA driving for whole year.

And that was just the Amazon, not rainforests across the world.

Just the Amazon.

The Amazon rainforest is thought to be home to 10% of known species on earth, but 17% of the Amazon has already been lost.

The loss of habitats puts many species of plants and animals at risk.

You can see in the photograph here that we have the red howler monkey, and it's from the Amazon rainforest, but it's an endangered species, and that's mainly due to habitat loss.

We're going to do a check for understanding now.

Is it true or false? Deforestation is a major cause of climate change.

Well done.

That's true.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air, and therefore reduce the effects of global warming.

We're moving on to soil erosion now.

Soil erosion is caused by deforestation because leaves and branches in trees slow the journey of the rain to the forest floor, and the tree roots hold the soil together.

Without those trees, the rain can erode away the thin layer of soil really easily.

Because the rain gets the forest floor really fast, so it has more power and energy, and then also there's nothing holding that soil together, so it's really easily washed away.

There's nothing resisting that.

This means that plants cannot grow in the future as there's no nutrients left in the soil.

So if you do cook down the rainforest, if deforestation does occur, then it's not as simple as just planting some trees to replace it, because actually those trees won't grow well because there isn't the nutrients in the soil after it has been eroded away.

So actually, deforestation is a really big deal.

It's hard to reverse, and it takes a lot of thought to try and solve this problem.

Displaced people is another impact of deforestation, and one that we might not think about all the time.

Conflict over land between Indigenous groups, local people, environmentalists, law enforcement, illegal loggers, and commercial businesses can occur.

Many people living in the rainforest have had to leave their homes and move elsewhere because of deforestation.

Our last impact is that of the mining industry.

Mining from minerals and metals such as gold, cobalt, and coltan, harm the environment in different ways.

For example, soil pollution, water pollution.

For example, mercury is used to separate gold from the ground, and this enters rivers poisoning fish and people living locally.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as the DRC, has experienced vast areas of forest loss between 2000 and 2023.

We can see here on the GIS map, that the orange shading shows areas of forest loss.

The four main causes of deforestation in the DRC are subsistence farming, fuelwood and charcoal, logging, and also mining.

Quick check for understanding now.

Can you name two impacts of deforestation? Well done.

You could have chosen loss of carbon sinks, loss of habitats, soil erosion, displaced people.

In addition, mining can cause pollution.

This is a huge number of different impacts to select from, which is a shame really, that we have so many negative impacts that happen.

Thanks to deforestation.

Our practise task today is to explain why people may have different views on whether deforestation could continue.

In order to do this, we're going to use a special structure to support us writing a balanced argument.

The introduction can define deforestation, and I would also use a fact to illustrate how fast deforestation is occurring.

Then we can talk about both perspectives.

So on the one hand, some groups of people think deforestation should continue because.

And you can complete that sentence.

And then we're going to talk about the other side of the argument.

So on the other hand we could say, "Other groups of people think deforestation must stop because.

You can use this structure with these sentence starters and suggestions to help you to create a really strong balanced argument.

Feel free to pause the video now.

Well done.

Right, we're going to have a look at some feedback now.

This is a model answer.

It is very unlikely that you've got exactly the same as me, and that's absolutely fine.

But you might want to steal some good bits from here or edit your own answer as we go through.

Feel free to pause at any point if you would like a longer look.

So, "Deforestation is the chopping down and complete removal of trees to clear an area of forest.

An area the size of nearly 11 football pitches of tropical rainforest are lost every minute." Did you get that fact in there? That's a nice one to add in.

So that's our introduction.

Then we're moving onto our first point of view.

"So there are groups of people who think the deforestation should continue.

Many local people make a living from jobs in commercial farming and mining in the tropical rainforest.

Without an income, families would not be able to afford necessities such as a home and food.

In addition, the taxes paid to the government can be used to fund important services such as schools and hospitals.

It is necessary to clear large areas of forest to allow commercial farming and mining to continue." Let's have a look at the other perspective.

"However, many groups of people feel that deforestation should stop.

Deforestation has many negative impacts.

For example, loss of carbon sinks, loss of habitats, soil erosion, displacing people, and pollution from mining.

Losing carbon sinks is a problem for the whole world, not just deforestation.

Losing carbon sinks is a problem for the whole world, not just the rainforest.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and therefore reduce the effects of climate change.

So less trees means global warming will accelerate.

As we are losing an area the size of nearly 11 football pitches of tropical rainforest every minute, this is a really significant problem." Well done, everyone.

We have come to the end of our lesson now.

We're just going to have a little look at the summary of people's use of the rainforest.

So, Indigenous peoples have been living in tropical rainforest for thousands of years.

People use rainforest in a variety of ways, including farming, mining, medicine, and homes.

Deforestation is rapidly reducing the size of rainforest to make way for human activity.

And deforestation has many negative impacts.

For example, the loss of carbon sinks, loss of habitats, soil erosion, and the displacement of people.

I hope you found today's lesson very interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again next time.