The tree was cut for cheap tropical plywood. No other individual of this variety of tree has been found. There was not enough of the original sample collected to synthesize the compound. The US is the second largest importer by volume of tropical plywood. Ironically, the tropical plywood produced from the Malaysian gum tree with the cure for AIDS could have been used to construct the set of Medicine Man.
Intact rainforests produce a substantial portion of the Earth's oxygen.
Rainforests regulate local weather and global climate. As these forests are eliminated, massive flooding and droughts result. Massive migrations of people have occurred whenever their rainforests are destroyed. Haiti is an example of what happens to a country when the forests are removed. Two billion people depend wholly or in part on rainforests for their subsistence.