Why Rainforests Are Important

We are destroying earth's greatest treasure just as scientists are finding out there true value. Cultures of indigenous peoples are also at risk of losing their way of life. Tropical rainforests took between 60 and 100 million years to evolve and are believed to be the oldest and most complex land-based ecosystem on earth, containing over 30 million species of plants and animals. That's half of the Earth's wildlife and at least two-thirds of its plant species! The disappearing rainforests are bad for the whole world because rainforests gives us so many wonderful thing like food, medicine and others things that we or animals can consume. Right now we are destroying about three quarters of the earth's rainforests and the most important rainforest of them all, The Amazon, has already been destroyed and soon, there will be nothing left of the Amazon rainforest! Animals, insects and even humans live in the rainforest and are all getting affected by the deforestation. My three points that I am going to talk about are:

1. What rainforests really mean to humans

2. The biodiversity of rainforests

3. The rainforest lifeline for animals and plants

The importance of the rainforests is necessary to the human race because at least 80% of the world diet is originally grown in some tropical and temperature rainforests. We can find about 3000 fruits and vegetables in tropical rainforests. Rainforests around the world give use wonderful fruits including avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, guavas, pineapples, mangoes and tomatoes; and some vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar canes, turmeric, coffee and vanilla and some nuts including Brazilian nuts and cashews. Although the rainforest is known for its delicious tasting fruits and vegetables, it is also known as the pharmacy of the world. Rainforest currently provide sources for ¼ of today's medicine and 20% of these rare plants are found in tropical rainforests. When our remaining rainforests are all gone, the rare plant species will be gone too and so will possible cures for diseases that they could provide medicine for. The rainforest and its undiscovered biodiversity hold the key for tomorrow's cures for leukemia, cancer, AIDs etc. We have lost about 10% of plants for some medicines. Of course the world has already destroyed 50% of all these cancer killing plants, so there are only enough plants for 2/4 of the world. There are also human tribes that can be found in the rainforests including the Yanomami and Kakapo tribes of the Amazon, the Huli of Papua New Guinea, and the Pygmies of Central Africa. Some tribes have had little, if any, contact with outside civilizations, while others seek to legally protect the lands on which they live. These cultures have adapted to the conditions of the rainforest, and have a deep understanding of the ecosystem. They often have knowledge of medicinal herbs and plants, and understand how to cultivate rainforest land without upsetting the balance of nutrients in the soils, and they help us discover new medicine plants. The rainforest has so amazing things still to be discovered, but since the people are starting to tear them down, there will no longer be any ancient treasure to be found and most important, rainforests around the world will be GONE and oxygen levels will drop dramatically!

The loss of all tropical rainforests in the world has a devastating impact on the world because these particular rainforests are so biologically divers, more than other ecosystems on earth. The biodiversity of the tropical rainforests is so immense that less a 1% of its millions of species have been studied by scientists. When an acre of tropical rainforest is lost, the impact on the number of animals and plants forever, but there is still a chance that the animal or plant has mated or grown somewhere else, so that particular plant or animal might not be forgotten. Scientists discover that some rainforests are losing approximately 137 plants and animals every single day, that's about 959 plants and animals a week! Today, rainforests occupy 2% of the entire globes surface, yet these alive lush tropical rainforests support over ¼ of the globes wild life. Lots of rainforests have already been obliterated by the humans, but yet the destruction still continues. In spite of the movement over the past century from medicinal plants to pharmacologically produced

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