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In our day-to-day activities we cannot exclude forest products. You don’t believe in this statement? Just think about how forest and its product are included in your daily life. Have you had your morning coffee? Read your daily newspaper? Wear your best dress to office? Are you going to office in a bus or a car? Signed a cheque? It is not possible to sum up the importance of forests in few words. For one thing or other, we have to depend on trees. Even if we are living in a city surrounded by concrete buildings and machineries, we have to depend on trees and its products and by-products.

Let’s check the importance of forest in a broader view. Forest helps in preventing soil erosion, maintaining the water cycle, regulating the atmospheric climate and acting as air purifier. Forest can be classified into different types on the basis of age of trees, density of flora and fauna, soil, history and geographical location. Some of the common types of forest are as follows,

Tropical forest – Tropical forests or rain forests will get rainfall in particular seasons or throughout the year. Usually this forest will receive nearly 200 centimeter of rainfall in a year. They lies close to the equator, so will get immense sunlight and heat. This type of climate is favorable for trees and creatures. Most of the tropical rain forests are blessed with a wide variety of flora and fauna. In this forest, we can see huge trees and creepers. Mangrove forests also belong to this category. Mangrove trees help to prevent soil erosion and excessive minerals in the soil.

This is one of the oldest types of vegetation forest that exists on the earth. They are the powerhouse of various types of energies. They absorb a large quantity of carbon dioxide and give out huge amount of oxygen. So, tropical forest plays a key role in maintaining living creatures on the earth. According to environmentalists, nearly 50% of forests in the world are rain forests.

Sub tropical forests are situated towards the equatorial region. This forest will experience noticeable seasonal changes. The main reason behind this is the uneven distribution of rain fall and varying temperatures. However, this forest receives high annual rainfall. Like tropical forest, the sub tropical forest will have wide varieties of trees and climbers. Carnivores’ plants, epiphytes, orchids, saprophytes etc are some of the plant species found in this forest. Among creatures, we can see frog, sloth, macaw, toucan and poison arrow.

A large farm or piece of land used for agriculture will comes under the forest type, plantation. People cultivate these lands on a large scale and earn a good amount of profit. Some of the crops cultivated in the tropical and sub tropical regions are rubber seed, cotton, tobacco, tapioca, coffee, rubber and sugar cane.

Boreal Forest or Taiga is another type of forest. This type of forest is mostly found in 50 to 60 degree latitudes. As this is a dense forest very low sunlight will pass through it. So most of the time, the forest will have a cool climate. The vegetation includes the evergreen spruce, fir and pine. Some of the commonly found animal species are bats, woodpecker, fox and deer.

We can see temperate forest mostly in regions of northeastern Asia, North America, western and central Europe. Trees like oak, maple, beech, and cotton wood and animal species like rabbits, squirrels, wolf and black bear can be seen in this type of forests.

Seasonal forests are also known as dry forest, as they receive very low rainfalls. Seasonal forests can be found in southern part of Asia, West of Africa and eastern part of Brazil. I studied most of these in my schooldays. At that time, my geography teacher was very towards me. So I used to call from my home phone connected to Time Warner Phone to clarify my doubts.