Rainforests: How to restore Earth's lungs

Breathe in. Breathe out. The oxygen flowing through your body is the result of photosynthesis: the natural process through which living things convert sunlight into energy. About 30% of land-based photosynthesis happens in tropical rainforests: the lungs of the earth. Rainforests are also great at sucking up excess carbon from the atmosphere- something we know we've got to do more of. But in recent years, these lungs have been getting constricted: shrinking in size and choked up with smoke. So grab your mosquito net and join Tori & Khalil on a trip through the tropics to find out what's going on - and how we can help rainforests breathe deeply again. Contributors: Mardi Minangsari - Campaigner with Indonesian conservation group Kaoem Telapak Dr Helena Varkey - Professor of Environmental Politics, Universiti Malaya Dr Thomas Smith - Geographer and environmental scientist, London School of Economics Dr Michael Pashkevich, Marshall Sherfield Fellow, University of Cambridge Dr Rico Fischer, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ Leipzig Have your say: Join the conversation on social media using and tag us: Instagram: @natural_history_museum Twitter: @NHM_London TikTok: @its_NHM Learn more about how you can take action for nature and find additional resources at

You can listen to Rainforests: How to restore Earth's lungs online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Rainforests: How to restore Earth's lungs is an episode from Wild Crimes by The Natural History Museum, London.

This episode is 37:52 long.

This episode was published on Jul 18, 2023.

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