s per investigator per day is probably greater than it is anywhere else in the world. With the warm, year-round tropical temperatures, insects can grow and reproduce all year, unlike in northern latitudes where they must die off every winter. One tree in the Amazon Rain Forest can be a home to two hundred different types of insects. By protecting tropical rain forests, we are protecting the majority of the species on the planet.Plant life in the rain forests is also very valuable in that not all valuable chemical compounds were invented in laboratories; most were actually discovered in nature. The possibilities in rain forests are limitless. “One tree may support numerous different species of fern, mosses, and lichens. The varied habitats of all these plants provide food, drink, and homes to countless creatures about whose lives nothing is known” (Mitchel 209). A four square mile patch contains fifteen hundred kinds of flowering plants and seven hundred and fifty tree species. One fourth of the prescription medicines on the market today are derived from plants.If animal and plant life isn’t enough to take into consideration, the human species most definitely is. Tropical rain forests have provided homes for native people for thousands of years. Destruction of these forests results in destruction and extinction of many indigenous tribes of people. In reference to one native tribe, “The world of the Pygmy is disappearing before the onslaught of civilization, yet they continue to cling to a way of life that is conducted with dignity, gentleness, and in complete harmony with their environment existence which other human species have largely forsaken” (Farb 118). Disintegration of culture begins as soon as there is contact with the outside world. The economic knowledge people have developed over thousands of years is tremendously valuable. This knowledge of how to utilize the forests is disappearin...
