Md Nazmul Hasan
December 4, 2012
English 110
Professor Virginia Johnson

Rainforest destruction is a major global problem with serious consequences. The destruction of the rainforest is leaving a negative effect on the species existence, on global climate changes, flooding, and erosion. Subsistence farming, logging, shifted cultivators, mining, and fuel wood collection are the major causes that lead to rainforest destruction. If we do not do something to stop rainforest destruction, we may perhaps loose them forever with all the great benefits that come with it such as medicine and cure, scientific knowledge, and biodiversity. The best way to save our forest is by teaching people about the importance of rainforests, restoring ecosystem by planting trees before cutting, banning excessive hunting and making laws to protect the forests.
One of the major benefits of the rainforest is medicine. In his book, The Amazon Rain Forest, Johnson states that the United States and other countries depend on the rain forest plants for almost one fourth of the medicines needed (42). Tropical plants, animals, and insects are the major sources from the rainforests to examine medicine potentials. Curare, used by doctors to perform complex heart surgery, is one of the most important medicines discovered from the Amazon rainforest (43). The rainforests provide doctors and scientists various resources to find cure for deadly diseases. According to Chinery, rainforests plants provide painkillers, anesthetics, cough remedies, muscle relaxants, and several drugs used for treating cancer (19).
Biodiversity is another benefit of the rainforest. There are about 5 to 50 million plants and animal special worldwide (Newman 485). However as the planets “ecosystems are being plundered for their natural resources, habitat destruction on massive scale has resulted in worldwide loss of species (486).”