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.
Tropical rainforests which is located between tropic of Capricorn and tropic of Cancer covered 12% of land surface few thousand years ago. However, today they o...
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... laws, eradicate corruption and try to strictly secure whole Amazon with strict punishments for criminals. To be capable to do this, there must be vast advertisement program, which may interest a lot of people. There are limitations in research such as real condition and a number of indigenous people, because it is estimated that about 50 indigenous tribes are totally isolated from civilization and there are limitations in research in real condition of food and raw materials in supply chain of large companies. This is because any shoe, portion of beef or timber materials that we purchase every day can be illegally exported from Brazil and there must be strict control of global organizations. In addition, there are recommendations of subsequent surveys in improving agriculture and finding more sustainable nutrients which would allow using lands for longer period.
The Amazon Rain Forest crosses several national boundaries in South America, although the majority of it is located in Brazil. It covers over 3,562,000 acres, making it the largest in the world. But globally, over 138,600 acres of rain forest are lost each year to deforestation, 50,000 of those in Brazil alone (Holdsforth), and the world's rain forests are quickly disappearing. Deforestation in the Amazon occurs primarily for three reasons: clear-cutting, fragmentation, and edge effects.
The research paper will discuss and consider the long term negative effect in the Amazon rainforest which is caused by deforestation. First, the paper will present the cause and effect of land deforestation. Another consideration is endangered species extinction that leads to effect the Amazon’s biodiversity. Finally, the paper will focus on how climate transformation and global warming affect the Amazon and what should people do in order to save the forests and solve those problems.
When the Portuguese landed in Brazil 500 years ago the sight that greeted them was of a huge rain forest, which then ran along much of Brazil’s Atlantic coast. In more recent times, there has been an outcry over the destruction of the much larger Amazon forest. But its devastation is nothing compared to Brazil’s Atlantic forest. About 86% of Brazil’s Amazon forest is still intact but only about 7% of the Atlantic forest remains. In this paper, I will explain why the Atlantic forest was destroyed, why deforestation happens, and the effects of rain forest destruction and the effect it is having on the Earth.
Of all of the issues that effect the planet Earth from a Global Change standpoint, one of the most visible and highly publicized is the issue of rainforest destruction. The loss of this emerald on the planet's crown will end life as we know it, if something is not done...
Deforestation is the clearing of a forest and/or cutting down of trees for human benefits such as agriculture, wood exports, etc. Deforestation is the cause of numerous environmental impacts such as habitat loss, flooding and soil erosion. It can also cause climate change, by reducing the amount of rainfall and changing the amount of sunlight reflected from Earth’s surface and increases the risk of forest . Tree growth is important for biodiversity because they absorb carbon dioxide which is a harmful greenhouse gas . However, since deforestation reduces natural carbon sinks, it disrupts the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air causing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air to increase. This poses a serious threat since carbon dioxide traps the sun’s heat and radiated light inside the earth’s atmosphere. So, with the increase in carbon dioxide more heat is trapped and thus adding to the effects of global warming. Among the many places where deforestation takes place, Amazon seems to be one of the most affected ones. More than 20 percent of it is already gone, and much more of it is severely threatened due to deforestation . It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year .
...auch, S. (2006). Industrial development on logging frontiers in the Brazilian Amazon. International Journal of Sustainable Development, 9(3), 277-296.
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.
When one thinks of the Amazonian rain forest, it is very unlikely that paved roads and highways will come to the imagination. Unfortunately, in the past 35 years road construction has been the main reason for the deforestation in Brazil's Amazon basin. In an effort to expand its frontiers and develop economically the impenetrable areas of the country, Brazil's government has launched a series of projects aimed at improving the infrastructure in the Amazon region. This included mainly the building of big transport arteries such as the Trans- Amazon highway and the subsidizing of small-scale farming along those arteries. The National Development Plans (NDP's) did not meet their initial goals since few people settled in the newly expanded areas and those who settled still suffered from low income, lack of educational opportunities and low life expectancy.1
In 2000 the population was 174.5 million people and now it is 200.4 million. The majority of this growth is people that live in the amazons. Government started deforestation for two main reasons, clear more land for houses and roads, and to have more jobs and the selling of wood. The US population increased from 247.2 million to 318.9 million in the last 26 years. It tells us that the deforestation in Brazil is being affected a lot in the last 16 years, and experts wait for more increased of population in Brazil caused by the deforestation.Deforestation of tropical forests affects not only the plants and animals of these regions but also their human inhabitants. The Indian populations of Amazonia are successful managers of the forest. Long ago, they discovered the secrets of sustainable use of its resources. I discuss the knowledge and management of the forest environment exhibited by the Yanomami and Kayapo Indians of Brazilian Amazonia and the importance that their knowledge and their presence as part of the forest ecosystem has for us all. Not only is this forest ecosystem now being destroyed at a rapid rate, but we (the non-Indians) do not yet know how to care for and make use of whatever areas of forest will be left when this process of destruction is brought to a
The Amazon forest faces threats like climate change, cattle ranching and agricultural expansion, badly planned infrastructure, illegal logging, oil exploration, gold mining, overharvesting of fish or other water species, commercial fishing, biopiracy and smuggling, poaching, and lastly damming. Eighty percent of cut down forest areas in the Amazon are cattle. Runoff from pastures pollutes rivers. Fires used to control fields often spread into the remaining forest. The people that commercial fish usually lose up to sixty percent of the fish due to spoilage. 232,000 square miles of Amazon has been destroyed due to logging. In the Amazon about sixty to eighty percent of logging is done illegally. Rainforests used to cover about fourteen percent of earth surface but now it is only six percent. If we don’t stop all these threats in about forty years there won’t be any rainforests at
...e reformed to produce more efficient and less harmful means of using resources in the Amazon while also producing new industries to help stimulate these developing countries’ economies.
There is an extensive body of literature on the topic. However, different researches suggest various models for identifying the causes of deforestation. The one approach I found most appealing is to try to understand the deforestation process as a result of the interplay of various inter-related factors. Therefore, instead of trying to identify only one dominant cause of deforestation from a policy perspective it is much more beneficial to stick to an explanatory model of deforestation which treats deforestation as an outcome. In this respect the model introduced in the paper "Causes of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: a qualitative comparative analysis." provides an interesting
In the early 1970's, the Brazillian military urged people to allocate to new land in hopes of more modern society that would allieviate poverty and encourage social stability in other areas of the country by having the people move to what they thought was empty land. They ignored the already in place indigenous people that have for many centuries, as we learned in the book "Nature Across Cultures", have shaped the past and the development of the Amazonia through Indigenous knowledge. The ancestors of their ancestors are responsible for creating the vast
There is a need for future generations to understand the correlation between modern resource extraction practices and the plight of the rainforests. With this understand, hopefully the havoc large-scale resource intensification has produced across global environments can be avoided. The focus of this paper is on the issues surrounding the main economic enterprises for resource extraction in the Amazon; these being logging and timber harvesting, and gold mining. Additionally, attention needs to be paid to analyze the changes agricultural, technological and infrastructural growth has created within the Amazon basin. Each enterprise individually should be viewed to see what has contributed to the deforestation of the rainforest. Analyzing multiple
Halting the destruction of the rainforests has been identified by the World Wildlife Organisation as one of the most urgent and yet cost effective ways to keep the world out of danger from runaway climate change. They also report forest loss contributes to over 20 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. It is the trees that absorb greenhouse gases and carbon emissions, therefore at the very least the more we protect the rainforests the less contribution to global warming. xxxxx has stated "Despite conservation efforts, global deforestation continues at an alarming rate - 13 million hectares a year, or 36 football fields a minute" (xxxxxxxx) Protecting these forests from further destruction and finding solutions is critical . Not everyone agrees about the main causes, some evidence suggests it is the private landholders who hold significant sway while others believe it is purely market forces that are the main concern. This essay therefore aims to cover this issue by first evaluating causes and follows with a look at proposed solutions. Finally the conclusions are drawn from the evidence to offer a practical direction to maximise forest preservation.