Deforestation In The Amazon Essay

How would you feel if someone came up and destroyed everything you own, everything you have worked for, and everything that held value to you? Would you sit back and let it happen or would you speak up and do something about it? Well, what if you did not have a voice? The Amazon, the holds 50% of the world's species and produces 20% of the world's oxygen is being destroyed. Since the 1970's, over 289,000 square miles (an area larger than the size of Texas) has been destroyed. Rhett Butler, editor in chief and president of Mongabay.com, said, "For most of human history, deforestation in the Amazon was primarily the product of subsistence farmers who cut down trees to produce crops for their families and local consumption. But in the later part of the 20th century, that began to change, with an increasing proportion of deforestation driven by industrial activities and large-scale agriculture. By the 2000s more than three-quarters of

Think of the thousands of species being pushed out of their homes and being left with nothing. Biodiversity in the Amazon is one of the most amazing things about it. There are animals on this Earth that can only survive in rain forest climates like the Amazon and they are not given a chance. Robert Ewers, an ecologist at Imperial College in the United Kingdom did a study and found that every forest block removed will lose an average of nine species and leave sixteen more on the line. It makes people wonder how many have become extinct and how many have been left endangered. These animals are being treated unfairly. We are not only invading their territory, but we are leaving them without food or a home. This is why so many animals become extinct because they are left without resources, are killed in the process, or sold for profit. Ewers said if key forests are not restored, species will continue to go extinct more than three decades after deforestation in the Amazon has