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Most people know that forests are the lungs of our planet, literally playing a critical role in every breath we take. And that they're also home to incredible animals like the orangutan and elephant, which will go extinct if we keep cutting down their forests.

Surrounded by a burgeoning human population, Asian elephants have to contend with the spread of settlements and farming, and the demands of rapidly developing nations: plantations, mines, railways, and irrigation canals have carved up former wilderness.

Elephant populations in India and also in the whole of Asia are under severe stress. The captive ones are rendered jobless due to changes in the mode of transport and lifestyle of people. The ones in the wild are also no better off, as the forests are shrinking.

There are 13 Asian countries that still have elephants, and Elephant Family is looking to invest in further projects that will be the most critical for saving elephants while there is still time.

China is responsible for a lot of the major conservation issues we're facing. It's the main market for rhino horn. Tigers are being killed for tiger bone wine. They're driving the tropical timber trade and illegal logging in Indonesia, and the trade in tropical reef fish.

Indonesia is rich in natural resources. Indonesia is rich in manpower with its 103 million inhabitants - not like Malaysia with its 10 million.

The elephant can survive only if forests survive.

You think of the rainforest as this incredibly abundant place of fauna and animals and flora. This great, rich wilderness. And yet it is such a biological battlefield in which everything is competing.

It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.

It's hard to appreciate the importance of the rainforest because it seems so far away, but it's vital to the survival of the planet as we know it.