The fate of the Rainforests
Rainforests are being destroyed across the globe for profitable enterprises such as logging, cattle ranching, and cropping. The results of this deforestation are strongly debated and filled with many grim consequences. Many scientists point out the possibilities of climactic changes, soil changes due to chemical erosion and hydrological balance shifts as a result of this deforestation. Along with the global consequences predicted, the impact on the wildlife and plants of these regions could be extraordinarily devastating. The only current data dealing with deforestation impact, which is reasonable and widely accepted is for mammal and bird species, not the plants of the regions. It goes without saying though that burning, and cutting of trees and altering the environment of a region could easily destroy many species of possibly medicinal plants. Many organizations predict that if current habits continue thousands of plant species could be destroyed in the next fifty years.
Throughout history, many of the drugs that have been used by humans have been derived from rainforest plants, ranging from curare to the Madagascar periwinkle, a now extinct plant in the wild, which is used to create leukemia drugs. The largest group of medicinal plant derived chemicals is alkaloid phytochemicals, which are present in as many as 20% of vascular plant, producing drugs ranging from caffeine to morphine. In the grand scale of things, of the approximately 250,000 plant species known, only about 10% have been studied for their chemical composition. Since plants living in the rain forests have developed under intense competition for survival, overcoming a wide variety of diseases and pathogens, the possibility that many of theses plants contain chemicals beneficial to humanity is overwhelming. With the possibility of many these species going extinct, the world could be on the verge of loosing many of its drugs of the future.Links:
Rainforest Medical foundation
Netrwork Science--special feature on Shaman Pharmaceuticals
HomeWhat is Combinatorial Chemistry?
-- Solid Phase Synthesis
-- Future Applications of Combinatorial ChemistryMedicines Derived from Combinatorial Chemistry
The Value of The Rainforests
The Fate of the RainforestMedicines Discovered from Rainforest Plants
Source Literature:Whitmore and Sayer, 1992. Tropical deforestation and species extinction. Chapman and Hall, New York.
Joyce, C. 1994. Earthly Goods. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston