Dr Rox­anne Mitchell

Each year on June 22, the world paus­es to re­flect on the vi­tal role of rain­forests in sus­tain­ing life. World Rain­for­est Day is more than a trib­ute to trees and wildlife; it is a re­minder of the link be­tween the health of our forests and the health of hu­man­i­ty.

Rain­forests are of­ten de­scribed as the “lungs of the plan­et,” as they pro­vide oxy­gen for us all; but they are al­so among the plan­et’s most pow­er­ful phar­ma­cies. Be­neath their green tree­tops lie liv­ing archives of botan­i­cal knowl­edge, im­mense reser­voirs of com­pounds that shaped some of the most im­por­tant dis­cov­er­ies in mod­ern med­i­cine. These forests, with a wide va­ri­ety of life, of­fer more than eco­log­i­cal ser­vices - they of­fer heal­ing.

More than 25% of mod­ern med­i­cines are from plants found in rain­forests, yet few­er than 1% of rain­for­est species have been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly ex­am­ined for their med­i­c­i­nal po­ten­tial. With­in the rain­forests of the Ama­zon, Africa, South­east Asia, and clos­er to home, To­ba­go’s Main Ridge For­est Re­serve, an­cient cures still lie hid­den in plain sight.

One such ex­am­ple is the peri­win­kle plant, na­tive to Mada­gas­car. Its dis­cov­ery led to the de­vel­op­ment of life-sav­ing an­ti-can­cer drugs used to treat leukemia and Hodgkin’s lym­phoma. Sim­i­lar­ly, qui­nine, de­rived from the bark of the cin­chona tree, has been used for cen­turies to treat malar­ia. Cu­rare, a tra­di­tion­al hunt­ing poi­son used by In­dige­nous peo­ples, be­came the foun­da­tion for mod­ern sur­gi­cal mus­cle re­lax­ants.

These are not iso­lat­ed cas­es. For gen­er­a­tions, for­est-dwelling com­mu­ni­ties have treat­ed wounds, in­fec­tions, fevers and chron­ic con­di­tions us­ing lo­cal plant knowl­edge, much of which is on­ly now be­ing val­i­dat­ed through sci­en­tif­ic meth­ods. This in­ter­sec­tion of in­dige­nous knowl­edge and bio­med­ical re­search shows the un­tapped val­ue that rain­forests still hold.

To­ba­go’s Main Ridge For­est Re­serve of­fers a pow­er­ful ex­am­ple. Stretch­ing across the is­land’s spine, Main Ridge has been pro­tect­ed since 1776, mak­ing it the old­est legal­ly pro­tect­ed rain­for­est in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. Its con­ser­va­tion was orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed “for the pur­pose of at­tract­ing fre­quent show­ers of rain,” demon­strat­ing the ear­ly un­der­stand­ing of the link be­tween en­vi­ron­men­tal health and hu­man well-be­ing. To­day, Main Ridge re­mains a sanc­tu­ary for over 200 bird species and many med­i­c­i­nal plants used for gen­er­a­tions by lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.

How­ev­er, this in­her­it­ed knowl­edge is at risk. As forests shrink due to log­ging, fires and cli­mate-change-in­duced weath­er ex­tremes and as younger gen­er­a­tions grow dis­con­nect­ed from tra­di­tion­al prac­tices, the cul­tur­al mem­o­ry of med­i­c­i­nal plant use is fad­ing.

The con­se­quences of de­for­esta­tion ex­tend be­yond the loss of po­ten­tial cures. Grow­ing sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence links rain­for­est de­struc­tion to the emer­gence of zoonot­ic dis­eases - those that jump from an­i­mals to hu­mans, like Zi­ka and Ebo­la. As hu­man de­vel­op­ment en­croach­es deep­er in­to wild habi­tats, the buffer be­tween wildlife and hu­man pop­u­la­tions erodes, in­creas­ing the risk of virus break­through events.

Forests play an es­sen­tial role in reg­u­lat­ing our plan­et’s wa­ter cy­cles, sta­bil­is­ing lo­cal and glob­al cli­mates (and there­fore slow­ing cli­mate change), pu­ri­fy­ing the air we breathe, and pre­vent­ing soil ero­sion. Each of these ser­vices has a di­rect im­pact on hu­man health, af­fect­ing every­thing from ac­cess to clean wa­ter and nu­tri­tious food, to the fre­quen­cy and in­ten­si­ty of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

Ad­vances in biotech­nol­o­gy and ge­net­ic se­quenc­ing have re­newed in­ter­est in na­ture-based drug dis­cov­ery. Re­searchers are now able to iden­ti­fy and syn­the­sise com­plex plant com­pounds faster than ever be­fore. Yet, with this op­por­tu­ni­ty comes a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that ac­cess to such treat­ments re­mains fair, and that the sourc­ing of plant ma­te­ri­als is sus­tain­able.

World Rain­for­est Day 2025 chal­lenges us to re­think what it means to in­vest in health. The next break­through in can­cer treat­ment, the next an­tibi­ot­ic-re­sis­tant so­lu­tion, or the next chron­ic dis­ease ther­a­py may al­ready ex­ist, but on­ly if we pro­tect the rain­forests that con­tain them.

As we mark World Rain­for­est Day, we must shift our per­spec­tive. Rain­forests are not just dis­tant wilder­ness­es or use­less ‘bush’. They are crit­i­cal to our health. Pro­tect­ing them is not just about sav­ing trees, it is about se­cur­ing the fu­ture of med­i­cine, re­silience and hu­man sur­vival. If we fail to con­serve them, we lose more than bio­di­ver­si­ty. We lose pos­si­bil­i­ties - cures not yet dis­cov­ered, knowl­edge not yet passed on, re­silience not yet built. We may even lose the frag­ile bal­ance sup­port­ing all life on Earth. But if we act now, we pre­serve the pos­si­bil­i­ty of heal­ing for our­selves and for gen­er­a­tions to come.

World Rain­for­est Day is a promise to our plan­et, to our health, and to our imag­i­na­tions.

Let us do more than ad­mire these nat­ur­al beau­ties, let us act.

For stu­dents and fam­i­lies - plant a seed, study a rain­for­est crea­ture, start a con­ser­va­tion club, vis­it a rain­for­est and feel the vi­tal­i­ty

For com­mu­ni­ties - sup­port sus­tain­able for­est-friend­ly busi­ness­es

For gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es - end de­for­esta­tion and re­store dam­aged lands

Let the forests grow, and with them, let health flour­ish.

The fore­go­ing was a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to help equip read­ers to face the cli­mate and health cri­sis.

Dr Rox­anne Mitchell, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Pri­ma­ry Health­care To­ba­go

cr­mitchell70@ya­hoo.com