The Amazon Rainforest covers over a billion acres and produces over 20% of the world's oxygen. It is estimated that over half of the world's plant and animal species live in rainforests. At least 80% of the world's diet originated in rainforests, including fruits, vegetables, spices and nuts. However, rainforests are being destroyed at an unsustainable rate, with one and a half acres lost every second, threatening millions of species with extinction.

2. RAINFOREST FACTS The Amazon Rainforest covers over a billion acres. If the Amazon region were a country, it would be the 9 th largest in the world. The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the “Lungs of our Planet” because it provides the essential environmental world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. More than 20% of the world’s oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest. More than ½ of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals, and insects live in the tropical rainforests. A single rainforest reserve in Peru is home to more species of birds than are found in the entire U.S. One single tree in Peru was found to harbor 43 different species of ants. The number of species of fish in the Amazon exceeds the number found in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

3. One-fifth of the world’s fresh water is in the Amazon basin. Each 2 ½ acres of rainforest contains over 750 types of trees and 1500 species of plants. At least 80% of the developed world’s diet originated in the tropical rainforest. This includes fruits such as avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos, and tomatoes; vegetables such as corn, potatoes, rice, squash, and yams; spices such as black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, tumeric, coffee, vanilla, and nuts such as the Brazil nut and cashew. At least 3000 fruits are found in rainforests; of these only 200 are now in use in the Western World. The Indians of the rainforest use over 2000 of them. RAINFOREST FACTS

4. RAINFOREST FACTS Some experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years if deforestation continues at the present rate. One and one-half acres of rainforest are lost every second (or about 30 million acres a year). Nearly ½ of the world’s species of plants, animals, and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century due to rainforest deforestation. Experts estimate that we are losing 137 plant, animal, and insect species every day due to rainforest deforestation. That amounts to 50,000 species a year.

5. As the rainforest disappears, so do the possible cures for many life-threatening diseases. Currently, more that 120 prescription drugs sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources. While 25 % of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, less than 1% of the tropical trees and plants have actually been studied and tested to see if they have possible uses. The U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70% of these plants are found in the rainforest. 25% of the active ingredients in today’s cancer fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest. One of these plants, periwinkle, has produced a drug that has dramatically increased the survival rate for acute childhood leukemia since its discovery. This plant is now extinct in the wild. RAINFOREST FACTS

6. In 1983, there were no U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers involved in research programs to discover new drugs or cures from rainforest plants. Today, over 100 companies and several branches of the U.S. government are engaged in such research. There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the rainforest five centuries ago. Today, there are less than 200,000. In Brazil alone, more than 90 tribes have been destroyed since the early 1900’s. Every time a tribe and its shamans/medicine men are destroyed, we lose thousands of years of irreplaceable knowledge about the rainforest plants and their uses. It is as if a library has burned down. Information taken from: http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm RAINFOREST FACTS