Jungle and The Rain Forest Jungle and rain forest are terms that are often used synonymously but with little precision. The more meaningful and restrictive of these terms is rain forest, which refers to the climax or primary forest in regions with high rainfall (greater than 1.8 m/70 in per year), chiefly but not exclusively found in the tropics. Rain forests are significant for their valuable timber resources, and in the tropics they afford sites for commercial crops such as rubber, tea, coffee, bananas, and sugarcane. They also include some of the last remaining areas of the Earth that are both unexploited economica