Some Interesting Rainforest Facts

Rainforest once covered 14% of the Earths surface, now they cover a measly 6%. experts say that the last remaining rainforests could be completely consumed in as little as 40 years.

Almost half of the worlds species of plants, animals, and microorganisms may become extinct or endangered during the next quarter century because of the destruction of their natural habitats due to deforestation.

There were an estimated ten million Natives living in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000.

In Brazil alone, European colonists destroyed more than 90 indigenous tribes since the 1900's. With those tribes have gone centuries of knowledge of the medicinal value of rainforest plant species. As their homelands continue to be destroyed by deforestation, rainforest tribes and culture are being destroyed with it.

More than half of the world's estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforests, and one-fifth of the world's fresh water lies in the Amazon Basin.

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. Twenty-five percent of the active ingredients in today's cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest.


A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all of Europe's rivers.

A 25-acre plot of rainforest in Borneo may contain more than 700 species of trees - a number equal to the total tree diversity of North America.

A single rainforest reserve in Peru is home to more species of birds than are found in the entire United States.

One single tree in Peru was found to harbor forty-three different species of ants - a total that approximates the entire number of ant species in the British Isles.

The number of species of fish in the Amazon exceeds the number found in the entire Atlantic Ocean.