Why Do People Want to Save the Rainforest?
Tropical rainforests are home to the greatest diversity of plants and animals on land. Rainforests are also essential to humankind as they yield many important materials such as rubber, which originated from rainforest plants. Additionally, many medicinal plant substances from the rainforest are finding use in modern medicine. Human activities such as mining, logging, road building and agriculture are responsible for the destruction of rainforests. According to the World Conservation Monitoring Center, one million acres (400,000 hectares) of Amazon rainforest are cut down annually. Conservation efforts are trying to save the rainforests before this great pool of biodiversity is lost.
