Health, Doctors and Common Sense

One and one-half acres of rain forest are lost every second with tragic consequences for both developing and industrial countries.  Rainforests are being destroyed because the value of rainforest land is perceived as only the value of its timber by short-sighted governments, multi-national logging companies, and land owners.  Nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century due to rain forest deforestation.  

There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rain Forest. Today there are less than 200,000.

In Brazil alone, European colonists have destroyed more than 90 indigenous tribes since the 1900's. With them have gone centuries of accumulated knowledge of the medicinal value of rainforest species. As their homelands continue to be destroyed by deforestation, rainforest peoples are also disappearing.

More on the Rain Forest

Tags: Amazonian Rain Forest, Animals, Brazil, Centuries, European Colonists, Governments, Half Acres, Half Of The World, Homelands, Indians, Indigenous Tribes, Industrial Countries, Logging Companies, Microorganisms, Nbsp, Plants, Quarter Century, Rainforest Peoples, Rainforests, Tragic Consequences