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Tropical Rainforests
When the beautiful rainforests, which are homes for over one-quarter of
the species on this planet,
are at the rate of complete extinction in 50 years...
SOMEONE has to help.
| Did You Know...
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Every second, a slice of rainforest the size of a football field is mowed down.
That's 86,400 football fields of rainforest per day, or
over 31 million football fields of rainforest each year.
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Rainforests are threatened by unsustainable agricultural, ranching, mining and logging practices
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By 2030 there will only be ten percent of tropical rainforests remaining with another ten percent in a degraded condition.
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80 percent will have been lost and with them the irreversible loss of hundreds of thousands of species.
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Experts estimates that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation. (That equates to 50,000 species a year)
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As the rainforest species disappear, so do many possible cures for life-threatening diseases. Currently, 121 prescription drugs sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources.
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A typical four square mile patch of rainforest contains as many as 1,500 flowering plants, 750 species of trees, 400 species of birds and 150 species of butterflies.
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Rainforests provide many important products for people: timber, coffee, cocoa and many medicinal products, including those used in the treatment of cancer.
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Seventy percent of the plants identified by the U.S. National Cancer Institute as useful in the treatment of cancer are found only in rainforests.
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More than 2,000 tropical forest plants have been identified by scientists as having anti-cancer properties.
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Is this what our future is destined to look like?

*Resources: Rainforest Facts Deforestation The Choice: Doomsday or Arbor Day
Trees Help Fight Global Warming Interesting Info About Rainforests
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