The deforestation of tropical rainforests also threatens the extinction of the indigenous peoples. For hundreds of years, the native tribes have lived in harmony with nature and learned much about the natural products of the rainforest. The knowledge they have amassed about tropical plants and other resources has greatly helped scientists to discover medicinal applications and other very important applications. However, the future of these indigenous people is threatened by the ongoing deforestation and influx of immigrants to the rainforests.

   The following few facts cannot even fully describe the grim future of these indigenous people who may be an important factor of the world's future.

  • On average, eight Indian tribes become extinct yearly because of rainforest destruction
  • There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000.
  • In Brazil alone, European colonists have destroyed more than 90 indigenous tribes since the 1900's. With them have gone centuries of accumulated knowledge of the medicinal value of rainforest species. As their homelands continue to be destroyed by deforestation, rainforest peoples are also disappearing.
  • Most medicine men and shamans remaining in the Rainforests today are 70 years old or more. Each time a Rainforest medicine man dies, it is as if a library has burned down.
  • When a medicine man dies without passing his arts on to the next generation, the tribe and the world loses thousands of years of irreplaceable knowledge about medicinal plants



First fact obtained from 800rainforest.org. All others from www.rain-tree.com. Check credits page.


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