A WORLDWIDE ban on rainforest destruction has been agreed by the brown-throated three-toed sloth (bradypus variegatus).
The arboreal mammals ratified the ‘landmark’ deforestation interdict at the annual brown-throated three-toed sloth summit in the jungles of Amazonia.
A 967-word statement was agreed after several days of negotiations between the chieftains of each of the tree-dweller’s habitat regions, and has also been supported in principle by the global president of the bradypus genus.
It introduces, for the first time, a worldwide prohibition on the felling of trees that form any part of a tropical rainforest, where around half of the Earth’s biotic species reside.
“This landmark agreement has been a long time coming, and indeed should have come much sooner,” admitted the brown-throated three-toed sloth species’ head of habitat protection.
“On this journey towards reforestation, as is often the way with us sloths, we have been a bit slow reaching our destination. Yet, we still find that we’re the first species to make such an agreement.
“I am now hopeful and optimistic that what we have agreed here; the measures and safeguards that will be put in place, the sanctions that will be meted out should the rules not be followed, and the precedent that this agreement sets; will all combine to protect and assure the future of the world’s rainforests, to which not only do the brown-throated three-toed sloths depend, but all creatures on this planet.”
Any attempt at logging tropical rainforests will, from this day henceforth, be against the law of the brown-throated three-toed sloth and will be met by stern resistance.
A new organisation tasked with protecting these essential habitats will be now be established and will base itself on the current perimeter of the rainforests, ready to pounce with three toes on anyone attempting to commence logging operations.
There will also be a new committee of reforestation set up to begin to plan a path toward extending the spread of rainforests back to their peak level.
Estimates made by academics at the university of the brown-throated three-toed sloth suggest that at current rates of deforestation more than a quarter of all species on Earth could be exterminated within 50 years.
According to brown-throated three-toed sloth scientists the loss of these trees is also one of the biggest contributors to the recent massive increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, because rainforests act as a huge carbon sink, and they are therefore impacting on global climate change, itself a further threat to the survival of rainforest species such as the brown-throated three-toed sloth.
“The consequences of continuing the status quo, in which 50,000 square miles of rainforest are lost each year, would ultimately be apocalyptic,” the global president of the bradypus genus said in a jungle press conference 35 metres above the forest floor.
“I am delighted therefore that the brown-throated three-toed sloth species has instituted the first-ever global ban on deforestation and I look forward to seeing how successful they are in ending this abhorrent anthropogenic practice.
“Good luck to them.”