Why are humans so interested in the rain forests from both economic and environmental perspectives?

Answer 1

Tropical forests have been the source of 60 percent of the anti-cancer drugs discovered in the last 10 years and offer a potentially huge economic reason for preserving the forest, based on the $200-billion market for plant-derived drugs. However, there are currently few short-term incentives to reduce deforestation of the rainforests. Loss of biodiversity through deforestation not only removes materials that could be used to create pharmaceuticals, but eliminates herbal remedies -- a primary source of health care in many countries -- and accelerates the loss of traditional knowledge.

Throughout the tropics, rain forests are being cut down. By different methods and for different reasons, people in tropical regions of the world are cutting down, burning, or otherwise damaging the forests. The process in which a forest is cut down, burned or damaged is called "deforestation."

Global alarm has risen because of the destruction of tropical rain forests. Not only are we losing beautiful areas, but the losses strike deeper. Deforestation causes the extinction of many species and changes in our global climate. If the world continues at the current rate of deforestation, the world's rain forests will be gone within 100 years--causing unknown effects to the global climate and the elimination of the majority of plant and animal species on the planet.

Humans have an interest in the environmental aspects of rain forests for many reasons.
From this website:http://www.trfic.msu.edu/rfrc/status.html we learn the following:

"Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the major gas involved in the greenhouse effect, which causes global warming. All the things that produce CO2 (like a car burning gas) and the things that consume CO2 (growing plants) are involved in the "global carbon cycle."

Tropical forests hold an immense amount of carbon, which joins with oxygen to form CO2. The plants and soil of tropical forests hold 460-575 billion metric tons of carbon worldwide (McKane et al. 1995). Each acre of tropical forest stores about 180 metric tons of carbon.

Deforestation increases the amount of CO2 and other trace gases in the atmosphere. When a forest is cut and replaced by cropland and pastures, the carbon that was stored in the tree trunks (wood is about 50% carbon) joins with oxygen and is released into the atmosphere as CO2.

The loss of forests has a great effect on the global carbon cycle. From 1850 to 1990, deforestation worldwide (including that in the United States) released 122 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, with the current rate being between 1.6 billion metric tons per year (Skole et al. 1998). In comparison, all of the fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) burned during a year release about 6 billion tons per year.

Releasing CO2 into the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect, and may raise global temperatures (see Climate Change fact sheet). The role of fossil fuel burned by cars and by industry is well known, but tropical deforestation releases about 25% of the amount released by fossil fuel burning. Tropical deforestation, therefore, contributes a significant part of the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

Worldwide, there are between 5 to 80 million species of plants and animals, which make up the "biodiversity" of planet Earth (Lawton and May 1995). Most scientists believe the number of species to be between 10 and 30 million. Tropical rain forests--covering only 7% of the total dry surface of the Earth--hold over half of all of these species (Lovejoy 1997). Of the tens of millions of species believed to be on Earth, scientists have only given names to about 1.5 million of them (Stork 1997). Even fewer of these species have been studied in depth.

Many of these plants and animals of the rain forest can only be found in small areas of them, because they require a special habitat to live. This makes them very vulnerable to deforestation. If their habitat is cut down, they may become extinct. Every day species are disappearing from the tropical rain forests as they are cut. We do not know the exact rate of extinction, but estimates range from one to 137 species disappearing worldwide per day (Stork 1996, Rainforest Action Network 1998).

The loss of species will have a great impact on the planet. For humans, we are losing organisms that might have shown us how to, for example, prevent cancer or cure AIDS. Other organisms are losing species that they depend upon, and thus face extinction themselves.

The deforestation of tropical rain forests is a threat to life worldwide. Deforestation may have profound effects on global climate and cause the extinction of thousands of species annually. Stopping deforestation in the tropics has become an international movement.

Because the loss of rain forests is driven by a complex group of factors, the solutions are equally complex. Simple solutions that do not address the complex nature of world economics and rain forest ecology have little chance of succeeding. The future requires solutions based in solving the economic crises of countries which have extensive rain forests, as well as improving of the living conditions of the poor people often responsible for deforestation."

It is for these reasons that humans have a deep interest in the economic and environmental aspects of rainforests.

Answer 2

I assume by "interested" you mean like why they want to save them.
Economically, saving the rainforests makes a lot of sense. 1/4 of every medicine used today contains an ingredient found ONLY in the rainforest. Plus, less than 2% of rainforest species have been studied for possible benefit. The money that the findings would make is astounding.
From an environmental perspective, the rainforest is very diverse. Rainforests cover only 6% of the land mass, but have over 65% of the species. Rainforests are also very important because the trees serve as carbon sinks, taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and creating oxygen.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

Rain forrests are considered the lungs of the earth. The help clean all the toxic crap from the world. Economically that's where most of the new medicines are coming from the various plant and animal life in those regions.

Answer 5

The rain forest if very important for this earth and the oxygen. Maybe you should pick up a book and do this research for yourself. You really should be ashamed of yourself for being so uneducated on something so important.

Answer 6

Like O2??? Gotta have enough rain forests.

Answer 7

short answer

they contain most of the rare species on Earth and are like the lungs of the planet, creating Oxygen for us to breath

Answer 8

economy = lumber and new spaces to build upon.

environmental = because we ahve limited resources, and the rainforests are only around as long as we let them. once they're gone, they're gone. And with them goes millions of species of plants, animals, and insects.

Answer 9

who said every human was i am not.