The Ellsworth American
Take a second look in your medicine cabinet. There could be a jungle in there.
Half of all drugs developed in the past quarter-century have an active ingredient derived from nature, according to statistics provided by the Alliance for Global Conservation.
Yet the habitats where these ingredients are discovered are rapidly disappearing. Scientists estimate habitat destruction and extinction cause one major new drug to be lost every two years.
The figures lend a pragmatic twist to environmentalism.
