Although tropical forests cover less than 2 percent of the globe, they provide a home for more than 50 percent of all living things - as many as five million species of plants, animals, and insects. Rainforest also provides a home for an estimated fifty million indigenous people around the world, most of whom rely on the rainforest to sustain their traditional ways of life.

Although people often don't realize it, rainforests also play an important role in sustaining life outside the rainforest. For example, at least 25 percent of all modern drugs originally came from rainforests. Over two thousand tropical plants have been identified by scientists as having anti-cancer properties.

Many of the foods we consume today, from rice and millet to bananas and pineapples, owe their origin to the rainforests, and rainforests provide an ongoing source of genetic material that is needed to develop many modern crops.

Rainforests also perform many 'natural services' for which there is simply no substitute. For example, rainforests cover less than 7 percent of the Earth's surface, yet they receive almost half of all the rain that falls on land. Rainforests serve a vital function by absorbing this rain and then slowly releasing it into rivers and streams. Within rainforests, large amounts of water are constantly circulating in cycles that keep climates stable.

Rainforests also help regulate the global climate, most notably by absorbing and storing vast quantities of carbon. Forests contain about 610 billion tons of carbon, making them one of the Earth's primary 'carbon reservoirs.' By acting as carbon 'sinks' and 'reservoirs,' rainforests help moderate atmospheric carbon dioxide levels&emdash;an extremely important function, since excess atmospheric carbon dioxide is the primary factor in human-induced climate change.