Inspiration
In 1989, Lynne Cherry learned about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and thought that maybe young people could help to save it. She was attending graduate school at Yale University at the time and she wrote The Great Kapok Tree while on a train ride between New Haven and Washington, DC. Soon thereafter, Tom Lovejoy, then at World Wildlife Fund, gave Cherry an artist in residency at WWF and he and the other scientists there provided her with their rainforest photographs to use as reference. Cherry also immersed herself in the "tropical forest" in the New York Botanical Garden. Lovejoy and other WWF biologists, and Brian Boom, the director of the NY Botanical Garden, facilitated her travel to Manaus, Brazil, to experience the rainforest firsthand. She explored the vast forest around Lovejoy's research site, part of his famous "forest fragments" project, and sketched and photographed the plants and animals there. [2]
When the book was released in 1990, coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day, Cherry told a reporter, "When kids grow up, in another 20 years, they'll be the people making the decisions. If they're raised with these ideas ingrained in them, it will affect national policy. We will have raised a whole generation of environmentalists." [2]
Reception
Upon its release, the book received mixed reviews from some critics. Kimberly Olson Fakih in the Los Angeles Times praised it for its "splendid paintings in tropical colors" but said the story was undermined by "soap-box oratory". [6] Similarly, Susan Bolotin in The New York Times said the book had "lush illustrations" but suffered from "peculiar language" and "preachiness". She said that Cherry was "jumping on the environmental bandwagon" but, actually, for years, Cherry had been leading the bandwagon. [7] However, the large color illustration from the book that accompanied this review piqued readers' interest and paved its path as a best-seller. The first printing of 15,000 copies sold out within a few weeks after the book's release, [2] by 1995, it had sold a quarter-million copies, and it has now sold over a million copies including many foreign language translations. [8] The book is beloved by millions of children who are very moved by the plight of the animals and are relieved when the woodcutter spares the tree. Many American elementary teachers use the book in their classes. [9] Students have put on thousands of plays and musicals based on the book to educate their parents and communities about the importance of saving the rainforest.
The Great Kapok Tree received a Charlotte Award from the New York State Reading Association. [10] It has also been named an NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children, an American Booksellers Association "Pick of the Lists", and an International Reading Association Teacher's Choice. [11] In September 2020, the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published a 30th Anniversary paperback edition with a new letter from the author and back matter about what kids can do to save rainforests. Although her book has raised awareness for over 30 years, Cherry is sad about the continued destruction of the rainforest. A 2014 Mongabay article describes Cherry's continued work empowering youth to save the natural world. [12]
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, with half of that loss occurring in the last century. Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. Estimates vary widely as to the extent of deforestation in the tropics. In 2019, nearly a third of the overall tree cover loss, or 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests. These are areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage.
A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 found that forests covered 4.06 billion hectares, or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020.
Ceiba pentandra is a tropical tree of the order Malvales and the family Malvaceae, native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, northern South America, and West Africa. A somewhat smaller variety has been introduced to South and Southeast Asia, where it is cultivated.
The Amazon rainforest, also called Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km2 (2,700,000 sq mi), of which 6,000,000 km2 (2,300,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 indigenous territories.
Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropical rainforests or temperate rainforests, but other types have been described.
Ceiba is a genus of trees in the family Malvaceae, native to tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas and tropical West Africa. Some species can grow to 70 m (230 ft) tall or more, with a straight, largely branchless trunk that culminates in a huge, spreading canopy, and buttress roots that can be taller than a grown person. The best-known, and most widely cultivated, species is Kapok, Ceiba pentandra, one of several trees known as kapok. Ceiba is a word from the Taíno language meaning "boat" because Taínos use the wood to build their dugout canoes.
The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about 7,000,000 km2 (2,700,000 sq mi), or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela, as well as the territory of French Guiana.
Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes. Tropical rainforests are a type of tropical moist broadleaf forest, that includes the more extensive seasonal tropical forests. True rainforests usually occur in tropical rainforest climates where no dry season occurs; all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm (2.4 in). Seasonal tropical forests with tropical monsoon or savanna climates are sometimes included in the broader definition.
Kakum National Park, located in the coastal environs of the Central Region of Ghana, covers an area of 375 square kilometres (145 sq mi). Established in 1931 as a reserve, it was gazetted as a national park only in 1992 after an initial survey of avifauna was conducted. The area is covered with tropical forest. The uniqueness of this park lies in the fact that it was established at the initiative of the local people and not by the State Department of wildlife who are responsible for wildlife preservation in Ghana. It is one of only 3 locations in Africa with a canopy walkway, which is 350 metres (1,150 ft) long and connects seven tree tops which provides access to the forest.
In biology, the canopy is the aboveground portion of a plant cropping or crop, formed by the collection of individual plant crowns. In forest ecology, the canopy is the upper layer or habitat zone, formed by mature tree crowns and including other biological organisms. The communities that inhabit the canopy layer are thought to be involved in maintaining forest diversity, resilience, and functioning. Shade trees normally have a dense canopy that blocks light from lower growing plants.
The Congolian rainforests are a broad belt of lowland tropical moist broadleaf forests which extend across the basin of the Congo River and its tributaries in Central Africa.
Bombax buonopozense, commonly known as the Gold Coast bombax or red-flowered silk cotton tree, is a tree in the mallow family. It is also known in the Dagbani language as Vabga.
Lynne Cherry is an American author and illustrator of nature-themed children's books, book essays and journal articles and a film producer. In 2009 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.
Flute's Journey: The Life of a Wood Thrush is a children's picture book by Lynne Cherry, creator of The Great Kapok Tree. It was published in 1997 by Harcourt Brace and Company.
The Boorganna Nature Reserve is a protected nature reserve located northwest of Taree on the Comboyne Plateau in New South Wales, Australia. The 396-hectare (980-acre) reserve, managed by the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, was gazetted in 1904 and is the second oldest nature reserve in the state. The reserve features various forest types, including stands of sub tropical rainforest of which the large rosewood, yellow carabeen and small leaf fig are particularly noteworthy. The reserve is a remnant of the former extensive rainforest on the Comboyne Plateau. The plateau was cleared between 1900 and 1925. Australian red cedar was logged in the area in the nineteenth century. Originally proposed to be part of the world heritage rainforest group. The exploration, knowledge, uses and history of this area by Indigenous Australians is not well known in the present day. Boorganna Nature Reserve was proposed, but rejected for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage, due to being geographically isolated from other rainforests in the group.
Kapok fibre is a cotton-like plant fibre obtained from the seed pods of a number of trees in the Malvaceae family, which is used for stuffing mattresses and pillows, for padding and cushioning, and as insulation.
Tropical vegetation is any vegetation in tropical latitudes. Plant life that occurs in climates that are warm year-round is in general more biologically diverse than in other latitudes. Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the whole year round, but others have long dry seasons which last several months and may vary in length and intensity with geographic location. These seasonal droughts have a great impact on the vegetation, such as in the Madagascar spiny forests.
The Ecuadorian dry forests (NT0214) is an ecoregion near the Pacific coast of the Ecuador. The habitat has been occupied by people for centuries and has been severely damaged by deforestation, overgrazing and hillside erosion due to unsustainable agriculture. Only 1% of the original forest remains. The patches of forest, mostly secondary growth, are fragmented. They are home to many endemic species at risk of extinction.
The Chocó–Darién moist forests (NT0115) is a largely forested, tropical ecoregion of northwestern South America and southern Central America. The ecoregion extends from the eastern Panamanian province of Darién and the indigenous region of Guna Yala to almost the entirety of Colombia's Pacific coast, including the departments of Cauca, Chocó, Nariño and Valle del Cauca.
Rhett Ayers Butler is an American journalist, author and entrepreneur who founded Mongabay, a conservation and environmental science news platform, in 1999.
