The enormous potential of medicinal plants found in the forest is an invaluable heritage both now and in the future. 25% of Western pharmaceutical companies using ingredients derived from the rainforests. Less than 1% of trees and tropical plants have been tested to date for the development of medicine. The U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells, 70% of these plants exist only in the rainforest. 25% of the assets in the current anticancer treatments come from organisms found only in the rainforest.
About 80% of food that is consumed by humans today had its origins in the rainforests; Of the 3000 fruits of rainforest just 200 are consumed in the West, for example the tomato, potato, rice, sugar cane and cocoa.
Individual food choices are crucial for the preservation of the rainforests as well as for your body: to produce 300 grams of meat requires a pasture of about 30 sq metres. The same cultivated area produces 9 kg of pasta. The pasta needs less water, and there is no pollution to the seas caused by the manure from animals and the process produces less gas harmful to the greenhouse effect . Today an adult in Europe and the United States will eat more than 100kg of meat per head per year. To produce a kilogram of meat there will be emissions of about 36 kg of greenhouse gases the equivalent of travelling 330 km on a small car. It also requires 15,500 litres of water to produce a kilo of meat against 900 litres needed for a kg of maize. And we know that water is finite: in many parts of the planet we are using lots of non-renewable groundwater. The animals do not graze more, but they are also fed with grains such as soy protein with a conversion of 11%: the animal use to live 89% of what he eat.
Growing tropical forests absorb a maximum of 10 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year. It follows that a square metre of tropical forest growth absorbs about 1kg of CO2 per year. Theoretically, one hectare of European forest, if it were healthy, would absorb about 4.5 tonnes of CO2 per year. But these forests often unhealthy so for this reason it dramatically reduces its potential for absorption. A mature tropical forest at the end of a growth cycle of 100 years has stored about 1,000 tonnes of CO2 per hectare or 100 kg of CO2 per sq. metre. A low emission car emits 109g/km in CO2, and about 1kg each 9km. Assuming a daily journey of 45 km, it takes a year for a 5 square metre piece of growing forest to absorb the CO2 pollution produced in one day by the car. Based on an average distance of 1,000 km per month the green gases emission is equal to 1,308 kg per year.
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