Biodiversity in the Rainforest

In spite of the movement over the past century from medicinal plants to pharmacologically produced medications to treat illness, rainforest plants still provide us with a the basis of modern day medicines. Today one-quarter of all medications come from rainforest plants, although less than one percent of the rainforest’s millions of species have ever been studied.

Current research by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has identified more than 3,000 plants that are active against cancer cells and 70% of these species are located in the rainforests. According to experts, if there is a cure to cancer or AIDS, it will be found within the rainforest’s biodiversity.

Consider the damage: in 1950 rainforests covered 15% of the land surface, therefore in half a century we have lost half the world’s rainforest. If our current pattern continues, we will lose the rainforest in another 50 years! Estimates suggest we lose 50,000 species a year due to the destruction of the rainforests. This is a staggering amount of lost biodiversity.

The loss of these species could have a catastrophic effect on human life. For example, the Madagascar rose periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) had a huge impact on the medical community. The two drugs that are derived from this periwinkle are monumental to those with Hodgkin’s disease, leukemia, and other blood cancers. Survival rates for childhood leukemia alone rose from 10% to 90% with the use of the periwinkle’s derived drugs. This species was endemic to Madagascar and is currently extinct there due to deforestation. It has been cultivated in other places since, but had we lost this species before its potential was known, survival rates could still be at 10% for this illness.

By losing so many species each year we may be losing, or have already lost, the cures and treatments to many diseases. There are literally hundreds of plants that already hold value for the field of medicine and pharmacology. Most likely, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands more that are yet to be discovered.

Continue to 'Medicinal Rainforest Species'

Ending Biopiracy

Biopiracy: the appropriation, generally by means of patents, of legal rights over indigenous knowledge - particularly indigenous biomedical knowledge - without compensation to the indigenous groups who originally developed such knowledge. (Wikipedia)

Many communities do not reap the benefits when their country’s plants are discovered and used by drug companies. For instance, the Madagascar periwinkle’s drugs are worth over $100 million a year, but Madagascar saw none of this money until the patent expired.

New attitudes are helping these countries, many still developing, prosper as well. The drug Prostialin, which was isolated from a Samoan rainforest tree, may be effective against HIV. The NCI has guaranteed part of the money from this drug’s royalties will be returned to the Samoans. The Samoans have since established a national park to encourage healers to use medicinal plants in a sustainable way (Rhett Butler, 2006).

While this case may be the exception to the rule, it will hopefully serve as an example to bioprospecting companies.

~Madagascar Periwinkle~