00:00This is the rainforest. It covers just 6% of our planet, yet it holds more than half of all
00:07life on Earth.
00:09It is not one forest. It is four worlds stacked on top of each other.
00:15At the very top is the emergent layer, giant trees over 200 feet tall, breaking through the canopy like islands
00:23in the sky.
00:24This is where eagles soar.
00:26Below that is the canopy, a dense, tangled city of branches and leaves.
00:33This is where most life lives.
00:35Monkeys, toucans, tree frogs, and sloths spend their entire lives here, never touching the ground.
00:43Then it gets darker.
00:45The understory is a world of shadows, where jaguars hunt and insects glow.
00:51And at the bottom is the forest floor, dark, damp, and silent.
00:57Only 2% of sunlight reaches here, yet everything that falls is recycled in days.
01:04Nothing is wasted.
01:06People call it the lungs of the Earth, but it is more than that.
01:10The rain forest makes its own rain.
01:12It stores billions of tons of carbon.
01:15It controls the weather for the entire planet.
01:19And it holds secrets.
01:20We have only discovered 10% of the species living here.
01:24There are cures, foods, and answers we have not found yet.
01:27But we are losing it.
01:30Every single second, an area the size of a football field is cut down.
01:35Once it is gone, you cannot rebuild it.
01:38You can plant trees, but you can never rebuild a 5,000-year-old ecosystem.
01:44We have to protect what is left while we still can.