Mark Lynas
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 For the most part savannah and thorn scrub, it is a climatic transition zone between the hyper-arid Sahara to the north and the lush tropical forests which grow nearer to the equator in the south. Intermittent rains mean that nomadic cattle herding has long been a dominant way of life, with people wandering far and wide through the seasons in search of grazing for their livestock. It is often assumed that global warming will further desiccate the Sahel, allowing the Saharan dunes to march south into Nigeria and Ghana, and displacing millions in the process. |
David Steinman
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 Pimm and Clinton Jenkins, conservation, ecology, and extinction investigators from the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, wrote that the world's three remaining tropical forests and twenty-five "hot spots" harbor "most of the world's species of plants and animals."44 Indeed, more than half the animal species in the world live in rain forests.45 Only a single square mile of Amazon rain forest is home to up to fifteen hundred species of butterfly. |
David R. Montgomery
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 Such vast tracts of land could be found only in tropical forests and subtropical grasslands—like the Amazon and the Sahel. Experience shows that farming such marginal lands will produce an initial return until the land quickly becomes degraded, and then abandoned—if the population has somewhere to go. Look out the plane window on a flight from New Orleans to Chicago, or Denver to Cincinnati. Everything you see is already in agricultural production. This huge expanse of naturally fertile ground literally feeds the world. |
| About the only places left that could be used for agriculture are the tropical forests where thin, highly erodible soils could only briefly support farming.
Because we are already farming about as much of the planet as can be done sustainably, the potential for global warming to affect agricultural systems is alarming. The direcr effecrs of rising temperatures are worrisome enough. |
Mark Lynas
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| We need to stop the destruction of tropical forests, and we need to dramatically increase tree cover elsewhere. And we need to make a difficult choice between injecting billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide underground and investing in 1,400 new gas power plants to produce electricity.
All this, and we can hope to stabilise emissions in 2055 at today's levels, breaking the continual upward growth of a 'business as usual' path. But this still leaves us with a problem. |
| These plantations have been responsible for disastrous clear-cutting of the fast-declining natural tropical forests, destroying the habitat of rare species like the orangutan and causing major additional carbon releases through the burning of wood and underlying peat. In bad burning years, these Asian forest fires are the greatest single cause of greenhouse gas emissions apart from fossil fuel use. |
Brigitte Mars, A.H.G.
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 Range and Appearance
Gymnema is a woody climbing plant native to the tropical forests of southern and central India, eastern Asia, Australia, and western and southern Africa. It prefers loamy, sandy soil. Its leaves are long, slender, and opposite. The creamy white to beige fruits are roundish and become thinner toward the ends, with one ending in a corkscrew.
HAWTHORN
Botanical Name
Crataegus spp.
Family
Rosaceae (Rose Family) Etymology
The genus name Crataegus derives from the Greek kratos, "hard," referring to hardness of the wood. |
Mark Lynas
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| A massive programme of reforestation, combined with an end to the clear-cutting of tropical forests, might also deliver a wedge of carbon emissions reductions.
All of these approaches have their pros and cons, of course. Probably the most controversial is nuclear power, which raises dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation and deadly accidents, as well as the still unsolved question of what to do with highly radioactive wastes. |
Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe
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 Almost certainly the precocity of Olmec civilization was a response to the immense fertility of the natural levee lands which border the sluggish rivers meandering through this landscape of tropical forests and grassy savannahs. The Olmecs were prodigious constructors of massive ceremonial centers made up of earth-and-clay mounds and pyramids; scattered throughout these centers have been found awesome figures of their gods and their rulers, carved from hard basalt laboriously brought in from great distances. |
David Wolfe
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 In Africa, the tropical forests of the mountain gorilla are being cut and cleared for cooking wood. Similar tragedies are happening on nearly every continent.
In third world countries, the cooking of food exposes people to the hazards of inhaling wood smoke or emissions from biomass fuels, such as cattle chips (dung). Emissions from wood and biomass fuels are major sources of air pollution in the home and are the number one source of air pollution outside the home (even eclipsing fossil fuels). |
Leslie Taylor, ND
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 The Institute further reported that the demand for wood could double by the year 2050; unfortunately, it is still the tropical forests of the world that supply the bulk of the world's demand for wood.
In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth's land surface was covered by rainforest. Today, more than half has already gone up in smoke. In fewer than fifty years, more than half of the world's tropical rainforests have fallen victim to fire and the chain saw, and the rate of destruction is still accelerating. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. |
Joseph E. Mario
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 The clearing of tropical forests increases C02 emissions from industrial hazards; disrupting the biosphere control by elements of life.
IONS When a molecule loses an electron it becomes a discharged stable Positive ion (norm 40%) that has unhealthy effects universally on living tissues. When a molecule gains an electron it becomes a charged Negative ion (norm 60%) that can be inhaled, with measurable beneficial effects on livingtissues and Immunoglobulin-A. Negative ions are normally 1000-2000 per cc. of air over open land, and are produced by lightening and waterfalls (50,000 cc. |
Leslie Taylor, ND
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| People in tropical forests around the world have used the plants growing in their backyards as part of their healthcare systems for millennia. In fact, archaeologists have discovered the remains of plants used as medicine at archaeological dig sites in Latin and South America dating back to 8000 B.C. In the northwestern Amazon alone, at least 1,300 plant species are used to create drogas do certao or "wilderness drugs" for the primary health care needs in the region today. Many of these plant-based remedies have never been subjected to any type of scientific research. |
| In the tropics, governments own or control nearly 80 percent of tropical forests, so these forests stand or fall according to government policy; and in many countries, government policies lie behind the wastage of forest resources. Besides the tax incentives and credit subsidies that guarantee large profits to private investors who convert forests to pastures and farms, governments allow private concessionaires to log the national forests on terms that induce uneconomic or wasteful uses of the public domain. |
| THE BIODIVERSITY OF THE RAINFOREST
Why should the loss of tropical forests be of any concern to us in light of our own poor management of natural resources? The loss of tropical rainforests has a profound and devastating impact on the world because rainforests are so biologically diverse, more so than other ecosystems (e.g., temperate forests) on Earth. Consider these facts:
• A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all of Europe's rivers. |
Alan R. Gaby, M.D., Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., Forrest Batz, Pharm.D. Rick Chester, RPh., N.D., DipLAc. George Constantine, R.Ph., Ph.D. Linnea D. Thompson, Pharm.D., N.D.
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 Botanical name: Gymnema sylvestre
Parts used and where grown
Gymnema sylvestre is a woody climbing plant that grows in the tropical forests of central and southern India. The leaves are used in herbal medicine preparations. G. sylvestre is known as "periploca of the woods" in English and meshasringi (meaning "ram's horn") in Sanskrit. The leaves, when chewed, interfere with the ability to taste sweetness, which explains the Hindi name gurmar—"destroyer of sugar. |
Leslie Taylor, ND
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| But despite the levels of deforestation, up to 60 percent of their territory is still covered by natural tropical forests. In fact, today, much of the pressures on their remaining rainforests come from servicing the needs and markets for wood products in industrialized countries that have already depleted their own natural resources. |
Dianne Onstad
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 Some figs are parasires that strangle and kill their hosts; others grow on low trailing shrubs in the desert or on tall trees in tropical forests. There are large figs and small figs, round figs and ovoid figs, spring figs, summer figs, and winter figs, and figs colored black, brown, red, purple, violet, green, yellow-green, yellow, and white.
The cultivation of figs goes back to the very earliest times. Drawings of figs dating back several centuries before Christ were found in the Gizeh pyramid. |
Peter Pringle
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 One question was whether a country could own the natural resources found in tropical forests, or whether they should be considered the "common heritage of mankind"—the concept that arose in the Law of the Sea debate.13 Another question was the extent of the global responsibility of corporations. In the view of Nigel Dower, a sociologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, it was "crucial to recognize that, given the evils of extreme poverty and lack of development, there is a global responsibility [of corporations] to facilitate and not impede development. |
Heather Boon, BScPhm, PhD and Michael Smith, BPharm, MRPharmS, ND
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 Una de gato
ž Garabato *:• Paraguayo
ž Saventaro
ž Garabato
ž Life-giving Vine of Peru
ž Hawks claw15
Medicinal Forms
ž Dried Bark and Root (capsules, tablets and teas)
ž Tinctures
Description
Members of the genus Uncaria are found throughout tropical forests in Asia, Africa, South America and Central America.6 The common name, cat's claw, comes from the curved thorns or 'hooks' used by the plant to fasten itself onto supporting plants.2 The species found in South America are woody climbing vines, growing up to 100 feet or 30 meters. |
Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D.
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 Today's tribes are relegated to areas of the world—the deserts, the tropical forests, and the Arctic—that are undesirable to modern societies. Consequently, the diets of modern-day foragers are probably not as rich, plant life not as diverse, and game not as plentiful as our ancestors' diets.
Yet these people fare quite well. In fact, the claim that our ancient ancestors ate poorly and were at high risk of malnutrition is not supported by the evidence that many modern-day hunter-gatherers are healthy and eat varied, nourishing diets. For example, the ! |
Michael T. Murray, N.D.
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 Gymnema sylvestre
Gymnema sylvestre is a plant native to the tropical forests of India, and has long been used as a treatment for diabetes. Recent scientific investigation has upheld its effectiveness in both type I and type II diabetes.6,7 Gymnema is probably the most practical herbal recommendation for improving blood sugar control in diabetics. High-quality gymnema extracts are available in health food stores.
Gymnema sylvestre appeared on the U.S. market a few years ago. Originally it was hyped as a "sugar blocker. |
Francois Couplan, Ph.D.
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 Epiphytic Cacti
These cacti grow as epiphytes on trees in tropical forests. The only species to be found in our area is:
Rhipsalis baccifera (D 5) Mistletoe Cactus (= R. cassutha)
From the Greek "rhipto," to throw. Mex.
The red berries, sweet and mucilaginous, are edible.
Rhipsalis spp. are the only cacti to be native outside the American continent; a few species are found in Africa.
AlXOACEAE
Generally fleshy plants, several members of this family are cultivated as ornamentals (ice plant) or as vegetables (New Zealand spinach). |
Earth RightH. Patricia Hynes
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| A world rainforest movement has arisen comprising people from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres who share a common urgency to rescue the temperate and tropical forests remaining from the enormous pressures to destroy them. For some—peoples of the forest—the endangered forest is their home, their sustainable livelihood, and their spiritual basis. For those living nearby, forests conserve soils, help regulate the hydrological cycle, and provide a source of fuel. For all of us, however remote from them, forests regulate climate at both the regional and global level. |
Andrew Chevallier
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 Habitat & Cultivation
Cinnamon is native to Sri Lanka and India, growing in tropical forests to an altitude of 1,500 ft (500 m). It is extensively cultivated throughout the tropical regions of the world, especially in the Philippines and West Indies. Cinnamon is propagated from cuttings, and every second year, during the rainy season,the young trees are cut back to just above ground level. The bark is harvested from the many stump shoots and left for 24 hours to ferment. The outer bark is then scraped away, revealing the inner bark.
Related Species
Cassia (rou gui — C. |
Earth RightH. Patricia Hynes
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| Before the recent massive burning of tropical forests, the forests of the north were destroyed. In the Middle Ages, the forests of western Europe were cleared. Much of the North American continent was rapidly deforested by European immigrants. Almost no great stands of primeval forest remain in the world's temperate zones, except in Canada and Siberia.
Industrial countries generate most of the greenhouse gases and also export the models of industrial development that are the sources of environmental degradation in developing countries. |
Francois Couplan, Ph.D.
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| It is found over all continents - even in the Antarctic - and in practically all habitats, from tropical forests to the limits of perpetual snow.
The Poaceae come in first for the number of individual plants and second for the number of species (about 10,000) after the Orchidaceae (about 20,000).
This family is economically the most important of all plant families. |
Adrian Forsyth and Kenneth Miyata
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 A well-illustrated general book on the biology of tropical forests. Golley, F. B., and E. Medina, eds. Tropical Ecological Systems: Trends in
Terrestrial and Aquatic Research. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1975. MacArthur, R. H. Geographical Ecology. Patterns in the Distribution of Species. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
An excellent and succinct introduction to ecology that makes specific comparisons between tropical and temperate zone habitats. Richards, P. W. The Tropical Rain Forest: An Ecological Study. Cambridge, Engl.: The University Press, 1952.
235
The classic work. |
James Trefil
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 There are about 50,000 species of trees in tropical forests, and if each contains 600 insect species, then there are at least 30 million species of insects in the world.
Each of these methods (particularly the last) involves a long string of assumptions that may or may not be correct. The only way to improve the estimates is to do a lot more field work. Over the next decade, I expect we will see a number of detailed studies of small areas of tropical rain forests, studies that improve the estimates of ratios of insects to other animals to plants that are used in these calculations. |
Ralph W. Moss PhD
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 The search is made plausible by the fact that 70 percent of the plants found to have antitumor activity were found in tropical forests. There have been many contenders. However, no Amazonian plant since quinine has captured the public imagination as another member of the Rubiaceae family, Uncaria tomentosa. It is also widely known by its common names, in Spanish una de gato, and in English, cat's claw.
The "claw" in cat's claw refers to the numerous hook-like thorns of the outer stems. |
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