Deforestation of the Amazon River basin has been progressing for decades as mass quantities of land have become necessary to sustain the growing farming industry of the area. Road-building, farming, ranching, and logging have been devastating to the tropical forests and the change has been rapid as deforestation of the area only began around 1970 (Fearnside, Pfaff). The government of countries in the Amazon have designed their current initiatives around increasing infrastructure and business, but these initiatives are largely responsible for deforestation activity (Laurance). The decline in forests of this region has become a serious issue as the effects it has on the climate and ecosystem of the Amazon River basin and the rest of the world are great. The high rate of deforestation in this area, averaging from 25,000 to 50,000 square kilometers per year since 1970, suggests numbers that project a complete absence of Amazonian tropical forest within the next 50 to 100 years if greater prevention methods are not taken (Shukla). These number projections mean threatening futures for deforestation dynamics, carbon fluxes, forest fragmentation, impacted ecosystems, social issues, and climates both of the region and the world.
Recent changes in Amazon River basin are a direct result of deforestation. Climate change in the area highlights the negative impact that the loss of tropical forests in this area has had. Because the presence or absence of vegetation is directly influential in regional climate, shown though controlled numerical experiments with complex models of the atmosphere, studies have shown that the changing climate of this area is due in large part to deforestation. Moderate and localized deforestation has caused a local re...
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...ction. Lots of indians die because of the Amazon getting destroyed. The climate is changing because of so much of the disappearing of the rainforest. In every 40 years 20 percent of the Amazon is completely gone. Sadly in about 30 - 40 years we will not have a Amazon rainforest. People are clearing out the Amazon because they want to grow plants and food but we used to have a lot of food but because of the Amazon getting destroying the we don’t have as much, and people want to clear out land for plants and foods but because of destruction the soil will dry out and we will have no more exzotic fruits. As you can see the Amazons environmental problems are devastating.
Tropical rainforests are an extremely unique and diverse ecosystem that are located around the earth’s equator. They once covered roughly 7% of the world, but due to human encroachment that has dwindled to just 2%. It is a highly moisture rich environment that typically receives anywhere between 60 and 400 inches of rainfall annually and average humidity ranges from 70 to 90%. A high average year round temperature, coupled with the moisture rich environment, creates an ecosystem that allows for a level of biodiversity seen nowhere else on the planet. This also results in a specific type of layering design that allows the system to survive and recycle its nutrients.
The Amazon Rain Forest Is in Danger of Being Destroyed" by Devadas Vittal. Rain Forests. HaiSong Harvey, Ed. At Issue Series. Greenhaven Press, 2002. Reprinted from Devadas Vittal, Introduction: What Is the Amazon Rainforest? Internet: http://www.homepages.go.com/homepages/d/v/i/dvittal/amazon/intro.html, November 1999, by permission of the author. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=OVIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010021212&mode=view
Roughly half of Bolivia is covered in forests. However, this amount is decreasing yearly due to a variety of economic and social causes that are representative of the developing world. In the last decade, Bolivia is one of the ten countries with the highest rate of forest loss (Muller, Muller, Schiehorn, Gerold, Pacheco). Until the mid 1980’s, the Bolivian forests were unaffected because the country’s revenue came from mining and agriculture within the communities (Muller, Pacheco, Montero). However, the collapse of tin mining led the unemployed miners to settle and begin farming. Also around this time, mechanized agriculture started to be favored because of the ability for greater trade. The three major sources of deforestation in Bolivia
There are many rainforests in the world but one of the biggest one is the Amazon rainforest, which is located in the northern half of South America and lies in the countries of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The Amazon also lies in between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. The size of the Amazon resembles the size of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. Since this rain forest lies next to the Equator, the climate is warm and humid. The average temperature is in between sixty-eight to ninety- three degrees. The Amazon has two seasons but each one is six months each. They are classified as the wet season and the dry season. The wet season occurs between December to May and the dry season occurs between June to November. The average rainfall is fifty to two hundred and sixty inches per year. The forest floor only gets up to two to five percent of sunlight since the canopy blocks the sunlight from getting to the forest floor. The Amazon rain forest got the nickname, the world’s pharmacy, because many medicines have been found in the tree bark, the tree’s leaves, and other parts of the trees.
Thus, deforestation is one of the biggest problems in the world that people have to consider because it has three main long term effects: land desertification, species extinction and climate change. The research paper will discuss and consider the long-term negative effect on the Amazon rainforest which is caused by deforestation. First, the paper will present the causes and effects of land deforestation. Another consideration is endangered species extinction that could affect the Amazon’s biodiversity. Finally, the paper will focus on how climate change and global warming affect the Amazon and what people should do in order to save the forests and solve those problems.
Deforestation is fast becoming one of the world’s worst environmental/geographical occurring disasters known to mankind, and is due to humankind’s greed, ignorance and carelessness when considering the future of our environment.
Nowadays deforestation is the one of the most important and controversial environmental issues in the world. Deforestation is cutting down, clearing away or burning trees or forests. Particularly tropical rainforests are the most waning type of forests because of its location in developing countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, central African countries and Brazil. Deforestation rate in those regions is high enough to worry about, because of large economic potential of forest areas. As the result of causes such as agriculture land expansion, logging for timber, fire blazing and settling infrastructure there might be serious impacts in future. For instance, extinction of endemic species of animals and plants which will be feral, increase of greenhouse gas emissions which may lead to global warming and consecutive catastrophes, destruction of home for indigenous residents which is considered as violation of human rights. Some people can argue with these drawbacks telling that deforestation have more valuable benefits such as growth of economics, production of food and providing better opportunities for life for poor families. However, these benefits are quite temporary and government of that countries and world organisations tries to halt deforestation proposing several solutions. Deforestation problem is especially acute in the Brazilian Amazon, where its rate is much high comparing with other regions. This paper will describe world-wide rainforests, causes and effects of deforestation, and evaluate possible solutions of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
In South America lies the largest and most wondrous rainforest in the world, the Amazon Rainforest. This 1.4 billion acre forest represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most bio-diverse tract of rainforest in the world. Ten percent of all known species on the planet are found in this rain forest, most of which have yet to be discovered. For the past century, the Amazon has been gradually decreasing in size due to agricultural expansion, ranching, infrastructure projects, energy exploration and illegal logging. In its current state, the Amazon is losing land equal to the size of the state of Delaware every year.
However it’s current state is impacted by significant extraction and use of it’s natural resources. Development and subsequent deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is a significant environmental topic of significance and needs consideration. The Forest has been depleted, “Since 1988, Brazilians have cleared more than 153,000 square miles of Amazonian rain forest, an area larger than Germany...Brazil has helped feed the growing global demand for commodities, such as soybeans and beef but the environmental price has been steep”(Tollefson). Practices such as cattle ranching and agriculture are primary development practices which are contributing to the continual deforestation of the Amazon Forest. The significance in understanding the environmental impacts on the Amazon Forest is imperative as the biodiversity and ecosystems are at risk as development continues. Moreover the continued extraction of the Amazon Forest’s resources is an ethical dilemma as future generations are at risk of being deprived from the quality of life their predecessors experienced. With this we analyze developmental practices in the region and consider policies surrounding the land use and extraction of Amazonian resources. Moreover it is important to evaluate the continued development of the Amazon Forest resources for economic gain, sustainability in question and at what cost can such practices
...of the western Amazon Basin: an approach using satellite images and digital elevation model, Correspondence to: Clauzionor Lima da Silva, An Acad Bras Cienc 79
The Amazon Rainforest is the world's largest tropical rainforest that we have today on our planet. It covers a wide range expanding almost entirely across from East to West of South America. It is most famous for its broad biodiversity and includes the famous Amazon River that is home to rare and diverse species. Today, the Amazon Rainforest is under threat of complete deforestation and has greatly lost more than half of its tropical rainforest due to cattle ranching, soy bean farming, sugar cane plantations, palm oil and biofuel agriculture. The indigenous people are doing their best to fight against the government to protect their land and conserve the rainforest but without capital finance, it is seeming to be an impossible project.
Fearnside, Philip M. "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, and Consequences." Conservation Biology 19.3 (2005): 680-688. Print.
Deforestation is the amputation of trees from forest areas more swiftly than they can be replanted or regenerate naturally. The fact that trees play an incredibly momentous part in stabilising climate, atmospheric composition and soil structure, removing trees rapidly becomes a major problem. There are numerous reasons behind the felling of trees by mankind. The Amazon basin is a prime example of humans exploiting rainforests. Within this tropical rainforest lie a vast variety of tree species, with many uses, giving humans even more reason to exploit this area.