In fact, they speculate, damaging the rain forest, which produces huge amounts of water vapor, could throw the entire planet's climate out of balance. Think of the rain forest as a living drugstore. And, of course, every time we lose an acre of rain forest, we lose perhaps hundreds of miracle medicines that could prolong our lives and cure many of the ills that plague us. Mother Nature's Pharmacy Think of the rain forest as a living drugstore. Twenty-five percent of the prescription drugs we use in this country come from plants that grow in the rain forest.
Rain forests are vast repositories of natural resources.
In fact, more than half of the world's estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in rain forests. If there's a cure for cancer, there's a good chance we'll find it there. That's because rain forest plants are especially rich in disease-fighting alkaloids. Rain forests plants make good medicines because they contain thousands of chemicals they have evolved to protect them from pathogens. The few chemical compounds we've analyzed so far have proven to be highly effective in battling the organisms that cause tuberculosis and other diseases.