Dr Jami­la Au­gus­tine

B. Med. Sci, MB.BS, PG Dip. Fam. Med., PG Dip HREP, MPH, FR­SPH

Co-Chair, T&T Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion; trea­sur­er, Caribbean Col­lege of Fam­i­ly Physi­cians

jami­laau­gus­tine@hot­mail.com

In late 2021, short­ly af­ter na­tion­al bor­ders re­opened for leisure trav­el, my hus­band and I trav­elled to the na­ture is­land of the Caribbean, Do­mini­ca, in search of respite from the pan­dem­ic. We stayed in a rus­tic cab­in, deep in thick, lush green­ery, far re­moved from the glob­al chaos still un­fold­ing. One of the trip’s most mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ences was a hike through the is­land’s moun­tain­ous rain­for­est to a stun­ning wa­ter­fall hid­den deep with­in the trees.

We set off that day with Lu­na, the res­i­dent dog, as our guide. The air was crisp and breezy from the very start. As we made our way deep­er in­to the moun­tains, I was amazed by the pris­tine beau­ty of our sur­round­ings. The for­est ap­peared un­touched, burst­ing with life, from the tini­est ants to mu­si­cal birds. Crys­tal-clear streams crossed the path and there was an over­whelm­ing sense of pu­ri­ty and tran­quil­li­ty. It felt as though I had stepped in­to a world ex­ist­ing en­tire­ly apart from the pres­sures and dis­trac­tions of every­day life. The rhyth­mic sound of the cas­cad­ing wa­ter­fall added to the melodies that sur­round­ed us in the lush veg­e­ta­tion.

The ex­pe­ri­ence was pro­found­ly and un­ex­pect­ed­ly ground­ing and re­mains one of my fond­est trav­el mem­o­ries. Be­ing in an un­spoiled en­vi­ron­ment re­mind­ed me of the im­por­tance of slow­ing down, be­ing present and ap­pre­ci­at­ing the sim­ple won­ders of the nat­ur­al world. It re­in­forced a les­son of­ten over­looked in our fast-paced, tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven world; that hu­man­i­ty is not sep­a­rate from na­ture, but deeply in­ter­con­nect­ed with it. The sense of peace, clar­i­ty and re­new­al I found in Do­mini­ca’s rain­for­est was not mere­ly a per­son­al mo­ment. It was a re­minder of the many ways healthy nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ments sus­tain our phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al well-be­ing.

As we ob­serve World Rain­for­est Day 2026, with the theme “The Rain­for­est and You,” it is worth re­flect­ing on how these ex­tra­or­di­nary ecosys­tems en­rich our dai­ly lives, of­ten in ways we may not im­me­di­ate­ly recog­nise.

Rain­forests, of­ten re­ferred to as the “lungs of the plan­et,” ab­sorb car­bon diox­ide and pro­duce life-sus­tain­ing oxy­gen. How­ev­er, their im­por­tance ex­tends far be­yond the air we breathe. Rain­forests play a crit­i­cal role in reg­u­lat­ing cli­mate, ab­sorb­ing and stor­ing in trees and soil vast quan­ti­ties of car­bon diox­ide, one of the pri­ma­ry green­house gas­es dri­ving glob­al warm­ing. When forests are cleared or burned, not on­ly is this vi­tal car­bon-ab­sorb­ing ca­pac­i­ty lost, but stored car­bon is re­leased back in­to the at­mos­phere, ac­cel­er­at­ing cli­mate change.

Rain­forests al­so cool their im­me­di­ate ar­eas, main­tain wa­ter cy­cles (they pump mois­ture in­to the air, cre­at­ing rain­clouds) pre­vent soil ero­sion and sup­port an ex­tra­or­di­nary di­ver­si­ty of plant and an­i­mal life. In fact, al­though rain­forests cov­er less than ten per cent of the Earth’s land sur­face, they are home to over half of the world’s plant and an­i­mal species.

This year’s theme re­minds us that the ben­e­fits of rain­forests reach every cor­ner of the globe. These forests pro­vide clean wa­ter, nu­tri­tious foods as well as med­i­c­i­nal com­pounds that have been used to de­vel­op treat­ments for dis­eases af­fect­ing mil­lions of peo­ple world­wide. Many com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly In­dige­nous peo­ples and rur­al pop­u­la­tions, de­pend di­rect­ly on rain­for­est re­sources for their liveli­hoods, cul­ture and sur­vival. By pro­tect­ing rain­forests, we are al­so sup­port­ing and sus­tain­ing the well-be­ing and re­silience of these com­mu­ni­ties.

Rain­forests al­so have re­mark­able ef­fects on hu­man health. Spend­ing time in these bio­di­verse green spaces pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ences our in­ter­nal bio­chem­istry by low­er­ing lev­els of stress hor­mones like cor­ti­sol, re­duc­ing blood pres­sure and calm­ing the ner­vous sys­tem. Rain­for­est ex­po­sure sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­proves men­tal health, stim­u­lat­ing mood-en­hanc­ing chem­i­cal re­lease in the brain, re­duc­ing anx­i­ety and im­prov­ing over­all emo­tion­al well-be­ing and psy­cho­log­i­cal well­ness. Whether hik­ing, bird­watch­ing, gar­den­ing or sim­ply spend­ing time among trees, con­nect­ing with na­ture can have pow­er­ful restora­tive ef­fects. Rain­forests, with their rich bio­di­ver­si­ty and tran­quil en­vi­ron­ments, of­fer some of the best op­por­tu­ni­ties for this con­nec­tion.

Glob­al threats such as de­for­esta­tion, cli­mate change and habi­tat loss con­tin­ue to place im­mense pres­sure on rain­for­est ecosys­tems, and col­lec­tive ac­tion has nev­er been more im­por­tant. As cli­mate change in­ten­si­fies, ris­ing tem­per­a­tures, pro­longed droughts and more fre­quent wild­fires cre­ate dan­ger­ous feed­back loops, fu­elling cli­mate change, fur­ther de­grad­ing rain­forests, and leav­ing them in­creas­ing­ly vul­ner­a­ble.

How can you help? In­di­vid­u­als can be sure not to start bush­fires, sup­port con­ser­va­tion ini­tia­tives, re­duce waste, re­cy­cle, low­er in­di­vid­ual car­bon foot­prints, choose sus­tain­ably sourced prod­ucts and raise aware­ness about the im­por­tance of rain­for­est pro­tec­tion. These mea­sures all help to de­crease the dri­ve for de­for­esta­tion. Equal­ly im­por­tant is ed­u­cat­ing oth­ers on the sig­nif­i­cance and role of rain­forests in our lives and ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies that pro­tect and re­store rain­forests.

This World Rain­for­est Day, let us re­flect on the many ways rain­forests sus­tain our lives and how we can pro­tect them. The rain­for­est is not sep­a­rate from us. It is deeply con­nect­ed to every as­pect of our lives, our health and our com­mu­ni­ties. Re­mem­ber, in pro­tect­ing rain­forests, we pro­tect not on­ly our­selves, but gen­er­a­tions to come.

The fore­go­ing is a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to help read­ers un­der­stand and ad­dress the cli­mate and health cri­sis.