Below is a table of the number of plants and animals that we know have become extinct or endangered due to deforestation:
Class Critically Endangered Vulnerable Total Extinct
Endangered Endangered
Mammal 169 315 612 1096 89
Birds 168 235 704 1107 108
Reptiles 41 59 153 253 21
Amphibians 18 31 75 124 5
Insects 44 116 377 537 73
Other Animals 471 423 1194 2088 343
The table above may only be the tip of the ice-berg however; other unknown animals could have been killed in the deforestation also many plants are unaccounted for as it is not always as easy to tell different types of plants apart.
While you where reading the extinction statistics around 150 acres of rainforest were destroyed and in the next hour 6 species while become extinct. We are killing off 6 possible cures to diseases every hour, that’s 500,000 every year.
We’re destroying cures for diseases?
Yes, around 7,000 compounds prescribed by western doctors have their origins in the Rainforests and, of the 3,000 plants identified by the United States National Cancer Institute as having potential anti-cancer properties, 70% are derived from the Rainforest. The few plants and animals we have studied are also helping us to understand diseases, like in cancer, how cancer cells grow while others serve as testing agents for potentially harmful or lethal drugs and food .
Are there many other problems plants in the rainforest could solve?
Yes, so-called “green” pesticides are being tested whose sources have been derived from the forest; food flavouring agencies are sending out teams to test and find potential flavours, also adoptions that plants have evolved may provide us with answers to problems. The newly discovered “Peach palm” of Brazil produces up to 300 peach like fruits a season, on closer inspection it was discovered that it has twice the food value of a banana and more protein and carbohydrate than maize. Also, two species of potato have leaves that produce a sticky substance that traps and kills insects. This natural defense would stop the need for pesticides in potato farming drastically cutting pollution through pesticides. Who knows what other tricks the rainforest might have up its leaves?
What about the people who live in the forest. How does deforestation affect them and do they know of any cures?
Deforestation is affecting the people of the forest drastically many have been forced out of their homelands. Their cultures have been destroyed and their home forest burnt down, many have been killed. These people are special. They have been isolated for thousands of years, and with many, contact with the outside world has only been made in the last 10-20 years. These tribal people and many of the people who live near rainforests cannot afford, or do not trust western medicine, so they rely on the forest and shamans for cures to diseases. These shamans know of many thousands of plants that have healing properties and western scientists are only just starting to ask them and already many cures have been uncovered. For example a drug used by the indigenous peoples of Madagascar called Rosy Periwinkle give a 99% chance of survival from lymphocytic leukemia and 58% of Hodgkin’s Disease, compared to only a 19% chance in 1960.
Summary, in what ways are Rainforests special?
- It is known that the world’s Rainforest are home to at least 50% of all species, and it’s further speculated that there could be up to 90%.
- A square metre of Rainforest can support between 45 and 80kg of living material or biomass, much more than any other biome.
- A square metre of Rainforest can produce up to 3.5kg of biomass a year.
- A square metre of Rainforest can produce up to 15billion tonnes of carbon, one of the most important ingredients of all known life, per year. A desert can only produce around 0.6 billion
- On hectare, about 2 football pitches, can support 400 species of trees and 40,000 species of insects.
- It is the most Bio diverse Biome in the world.
- Despite the fact that Rainforest covers less than 10% of the Earth’s land mass, they support around 35% of all plant matter.
