People and the rainforest have a long relationship; humans have been inhabiting and benefitting from rainforests for tens of thousands of years. Modern human development, however, threatens the survival of rainforests. Part of the challenge of conservation is balancing the needs of indigenous peoples and the environment while protecting the land from local, national and international consumerism.

Living in the Rainforest

Rainforests have been home to thriving communities for millennia. However, threats to rainforests threaten these communities and their way of life as well as the ecosystem of the planet. Here are some examples of indigenous communities who still call rainforests home to this day.

Mbuti

The Mbuti people, a community indigenous to the Ituri rainforest in Central Africa, have traditionally been hunter-gatherers. Their diet consists of plants and animals from every layer of the rainforest.

From the forest floor, the Mbuti people hunt for large animals, fish in the forest’s rivers and gather fruit from low-lying shrubs. The giant forest hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni), a species of wild boar, is also frequently targeted by Mbuti hunters, although this species is hunted for trade more often than food. From the understory, the Mbuti people gather honey from bee hives and hunt monkeys. From the canopy and emergent layers, Mbuti hunters set nets and traps for birds.

Their traditional system of migration has allowed the Mbuti people to live in the forest and use its resources without degrading the land. The Mbuti people regularly move to new locations, providing other areas with a break from their hunting and gathering practices. This gives the land time to replenish its plant and animal populations. Practices that increase deforestation however, such as agriculture development, are now degrading the land, as the forest is not given time to rest and regenerate. The rest of the world could look to this method of land use as one sustainable solution to lessen deforestation and climate change.

Chimbu

The Chimbu people live in the highland rainforest on the island of Papua New Guinea. The Chimbu people practice subsistence agriculture through shifting cultivation. This means they have gardens on arable land cleared of vegetation. A portion of the plot may lie fallow for months or years. The plots are never abandoned and are passed on within the family.

Crops harvested in Chimbu garden plots include sweet potatoes. The Chimbu people also maintain livestock, particularly pigs. In addition to their dietary purposes, pigs are also valuable economic commodities for trade and sale.

The Chimbu and other indigenous groups in Papua New Guinea have long histories of scientific innovation. They use rainforest plants in their traditional medicine and have developed treatments for skin issues, stomach aches and infections. Archaeological excavations also show that thousands of years ago, ancient Papua New Guineans created what could be the earliest agricultural and irrigation systems. Another early innovation in farming included a crop rotation technique called “swidden gardening” or “slash and burn” in which farmers burn dead vegetation to clear it after leaving part of the land fallow.

Tlingit

The temperate rainforest of the northwest coast of North America is the home of the Tlingit people. The Tlingit people enjoy a diverse diet, relying on both marine and freshwater species, as well as game from inland forests.

Due to bountiful Pacific inlets, rivers and streams, the traditional Tlingit diet consists of a wide variety of aquatic life: crab and other shellfish, seals and fish, such as herring, halibut and, crucially, salmon. Kelps and other seaweeds are harvested and eaten in soups or dried. One familiar Tlingit saying is “When the tide is out, our table is set.”

In more inland areas, historic Tlingit hunters have targeted deer and mountain goats. Plants gathered or harvested include berries and wild celery.

The Tlingit also have a long history of technological advancements and innovation. They were using metalwork techniques to create copper weapons before Europeans. They traded inland groups for copper, used hammers and saws to shape it, and brought it to the coast for trading and use.

Indigenous peoples from the Pacific Northwest have also used cultural burning of the forest to revitalize the land. They understand that controlled fires would clear out dead material to prevent bigger fires and encourage new growth. Scientists and government officials in the United States are beginning to understand the benefit of controlled burns and are connecting with indigenous leaders to learn from their expertise.

Yanomami

The Yanomami are a people and culture native to the northern Amazon rainforest, spanning the border between Venezuela and Brazil. Like the Chimbu, the Yanomami people practice both hunting and shifting-cultivation agriculture. Game hunted by the Yanomami include deer, tapirs (Tapirus; an animal similar to a pig) and monkeys.

Similar to other indigenous peoples in the world’s rainforests, the Yanomami people practice slash-and-burn agriculture to clear the land of vegetation prior to farming. They also migrate once they have used the resources in an area and allow it to regrow, creating a sustainable way of life that does not degrade the forest. Crops grown include cassava, banana and corn. In addition to food crops, the Yanomami also cultivate cotton, which is used for hammocks, nets and clothing.

The Yanomami are one of the most studied indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest and possibly the most misrepresented. Western scholars became interested in studying the tribe after one anthropologist, Napoleon Chagon, published books describing the Yanomami people of being in a state of near constant war with each other. Believing them to be “primitive,” Chagon claimed that studying the Yanomami people would reveal why “early” humans went to war with each other. The Yanomami people reject this dehumanizing and racist characterization, as do most scholars of today, saying that they are no more violent than any other people in the world.

Benefits of Rainforests

Ecological Well-Being

Rainforests are critically important to the well-being of our planet. Rainforest trees absorb carbon dioxide and store a huge amount of carbon. The trees also absorb massive amounts of solar radiation, helping regulate regional temperatures. Taken together, these processes help to stabilize Earth’s climate.

Rainforests also help maintain the world’s water cycle. More than 50% of precipitation striking a rainforest is returned to the atmosphere by evapotranspiration, which helps regulate healthy rainfall around the planet. Rainforests also store a considerable percentage of the world’s freshwater, with the Amazon Basin alone storing one-fifth.

Human Well-Being

Rainforests are home to indigenous communities with rich cultural experiences and knowledge. They are also ecologically beneficial to the entire world; rainforests provide us with many medicinal products. About 70% of plants useful in the treatment of cancer are found only in rainforests. Rainforest plants are also used in the creation of muscle relaxants, steroids and insecticides. They are used to treat asthma, arthritis, malaria, heart disease and lung conditions. The importance of rainforest species in public health is even more incredible considering that less than 3% of rainforest species have been analyzed for their medicinal value.

Consumerism of the Rainforest

Commodification of the rainforest is also high, with people using its natural resources to make products that are used every day. This commodification has contributed to deforestation and degradation of the forests, and it has led to forced labor and dangerous working conditions for those who harvest the materials. Demand from the United States, China and other countries for rainforest products continues to put pressure on countries with rainforests to increase production, which is at odds with conservation efforts.

Commodification of the rainforest is so high that many people use rainforest products every day. Tropical woods, such as teak, balsa, rosewood and mahogany, are used in flooring, doors, windows, boatbuilding and cabinetry. Fibers, such as raffia, bamboo, kapok and rattan, are used to make furniture, baskets, insulation and cord. Cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg and ginger are just a few spices of the rainforest. The tropical rainforest ecosystem also supports fruits, including bananas, papayas, mangos, cocoa and coffee beans.

While commodification of the rainforest is generally harmful to the environment, some of the materials found in the rainforest can be used to increase sustainability. A mushroom discovered in the tropical rainforest of Ecuador, for example, is capable of consuming polyurethane—a hard, durable type of plastic used in everything from garden hoses to carpets to shoes. The fungi can even consume the plastic in an oxygen-free environment.

Commodification of the rainforest does not just harm the environment. It has had harmful effects on indigenous populations as well. For example, though they are a generally healthy population with a history of traditional medicine, the Yanomami community has faced increasing health challenges due to gold miners who illegally mine in their lands. The miners bring illnesses, like malaria, and degrade the land to such an extent that the Yanomami struggle to find food. To fight these injustices, the Yanomami have organized and advocated for their rights on both a local and international level.

Indigenous groups in rainforests all over the world advocate for their rights against commodification of the land. In Indonesia, indigenous people have protested for rights to their land after palm oil companies destroyed their forests without consulting them first, a violation of Indonesian law. These protests have led to violence against the indigenous community.

In the United States, the government has developed a forest management plan for the wooded areas of the Pacific Northwest to balance the protection of forests with logging practices. However, the government did not include the indigenous people living in the Pacific Northwest when forming these regulations, and the resulting legislation prohibited them from traditional practices, such as cultural burns. In the early 2020s, indigenous people advocated for their inclusion in revising the regulations to center themselves as stewards of the forests.

Threats to Rainforests

Rainforests are disappearing at an alarmingly fast pace, largely due to human development over the past few centuries. Deforestation, primarily due to logging and agriculture, is destroying rainforests faster than other types of woodlands. About 34% of the Earth’s tropical rainforests are already gone.

Many biologists predict rainforests could lose hundreds of thousands of species. Rampant deforestation could cause many important rainforest habitats to disappear completely within the next hundred years.

In the Pacific Northwest’s rainforests, logging companies cut down trees for timber while paper industries use the wood for pulp. In the Amazon rainforest, large-scale agricultural industries, such as cattle ranching, clear huge tracts of forests for arable land. In the Congo rainforest, roads and other infrastructure developments have reduced habitat and cut off migration corridors for many rainforest species. This has also threatened the Mbuti people's food supply, not only making it hard for them to sustain their families, but also risking the loss of their traditional hunting methods.

Some rainforests are threatened by massive hydroelectric power projects, where dams flood acres of land. Throughout both the Amazon and the Congo, mining and logging operations cut through forests to build roads and dig mines. Development is encroaching on rainforest habitats from all sides.

Economic inequalities fuel this rapid deforestation. Many rainforests are located in formerly colonized countries. Colonizers left these countries with economies built around exploiting both the people and the natural resources. Many nations, often those who colonized other nations for their raw materials, drive demand for products, and economic development increases energy use. These demands compel local governments to develop rainforest acreage at a fraction of its value.

People experiencing poverty who live on or near these lands are also motivated to improve their lives by converting forests into subsistence farmland. For example, farmers in Brazil have turned to cattle ranching, because beef is in such high demand across the world, particularly in the United States. This has led to beef production being the primary source of deforestation in the Amazon.

Rainforest Conservation

Conservation of the rainforest is challenging for a variety of reasons. Many individuals, communities, governments, intergovernmental organizations and conservation groups are taking innovative approaches to protect threatened rainforest habitats. However, these efforts are sometimes at odds with the interests of local communities and indigenous people. Additionally, economic demands put pressure on the governments that oversee rainforests to relax their own rules and put profits over conservation. This lack of international regulation allows for increased degradation of the forests.

Despite these lack of regulations, there are intergovernmental groups that are addressing rainforest conservation at a global scale. The United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) Program offers financial incentives for reducing carbon emissions created by deforestation to over 60 member countries. The Democratic Republic of the Congo used REDD support to create an online National Forest Monitoring System that tracks and maps data on logging concessions, deforestation in protected areas, and national forestry sector measures.

Nonprofit organizations are tackling rainforest conservation through a variety of different approaches. The Rainforest Trust supports local conservation groups around the world in purchasing and managing critically important habitats. In Ecuador, the Rainforest Trust has worked with the Fundación Jocotoco to acquire well over 500 hectares (1,235 acres) for the Río Canandé Reserve, which is considered to have one of the highest concentrations of endemic and threatened species in the world.

A National Geographic Explorer who focuses on planetary health, Nur Febriani Wardi, works for a non-profit organization called Alam Sehat Lestari that seeks local community-driven solutions to deforestation of the Indonesian rainforest. Wardi brings her expertise about the well-being of the planet and the people on it to advocate for planetary health on both a national and international level.

Many countries are supporting businesses and initiatives that promote the sustainable use of their rainforests. Costa Rica is a global pioneer in this field, investing in ecotourism projects that financially contribute to local economies and the forests they depend on. The country has also pursued other avenues to promote conservation. In 1991, Costa Rica entered an agreement with an U.S. pharmaceutical company, Merck, that set aside a portion of the proceeds from rainforest-derived pharmaceutical compounds to fund conservation projects.

These efforts do not always work, however. The agreement between Costa Rica and Merck ended nearly 20 years after its conception, as it did not deliver on its financial promises for Costa Rica. With ecotourism, as natural attractions gain popularity, there is a greater chance that the animals will be negatively affected, or the land will become degraded. Often, the profits from ecotourism are not redirected back into the local economy, so indigenous people and other locals do not benefit. There is a lack of regulation in the industry on an international level that can leave the land and local people open to exploitation.

The push from governments and organizations to conserve the rainforests has also had unintended consequences for the indigenous people who live in these forests. For example, some indigenous Pygmy people, a group that includes the Mbuti, have been forced off of their ancestral lands in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because the government turned these areas into conservation parks. Indigenous groups were forced out of their homes due to concerns about hunting and land use when the forests were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites. Though indigenous people have fought for their rights to retain access to their land, they report that they are still being forced out. This has led to increased poverty for these indigenous populations and an inability to practice their traditional ways of life.

Conservation efforts must learn from these lessons to be successful in protecting the rainforest. Some governments have made indigenous knowledge and expertise part of their conservation efforts. Clans of the Inaugl indigenous group helped create and signed a conservation deed in Papua New Guinea. This deed protects land from logging while also allowing for traditional tribal practices, leaving the indigenous people to steward the land and build further community-based governance. This type of conservation effort can be a model to other countries in balancing the needs of locals with the protection of forests.