What are the natural resources found in a tropical rainforest?
Tropical rainforests by themselves are a natural resource for us. Rainforests are home to two-thirds of all the living animal and plant species on the planet. Rainforests are also often called the “Earth’s lungs”. Coffee, chocolate, bananas, mangoes, papayas, avocados, and sugar cane all originally came from tropical rainforests, and are still mostly grown on plantations in regions that were formerly primary forest. Much of the genetic variation used in evading the damage caused by new pests is still derived from resistant wild stock. Tropical forests have supplied 250 cultivated kinds of fruit, compared to only 20 for temperate forests. Forests in New Guinea alone contain 251 tree species with edible fruits, of which only 43 had been established so far. They are also called “the world’s largest pharmacy” because of the large amount of natural “medicines” discovered there. It is estimated that more than two-thirds of the world’s species of plants and animals are found in the rainforest
