Deforestation on Amazon
Deforestation is a longer-term alteration of the forest to several other kinds of ecosystems, for example agricultural or residential land. Sometimes, on the other hand, the name is used as an indication to some situations in which forests are concerned, for instance by clear-cut harvest, even if another forest consequently regenerates in its place. A variety of human activities results in net losses of forest area and consequently contributes to deforestation. The most significant cause of deforestation is the conception of new agricultural land and an indefensible harvesting of trees.
Today, Brazil rain forests, and the millions of creatures that live within them, are in danger. Earths largest rain forest is found on the Amazon River in South America. It is 5.2 square kilometers in size. Taking up only 6 to 7 percent of the planet's land surface. It is home to more than half of the world's animal and plant species. Scientists believe that several species become extinct every day. Extinction is taking place because the rain forests are being destroyed. About one and a half square miles of Amazon rainforest, is destroyed every hour. Although, deforestation in Brazil is one of the most important global environmental issues today; Trees are being cut down at progressively higher and higher rates. If this is not stopped many critical side effects could result.
During the past 40 years, almost 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down. Since early European colonization began in the Amazon more than 450 years ago, less trees were cut down in that whole time than the past 40 years. Innumerable others suffer uncertainty and fear, as their lives are being threatened by those who want to profit from the theft of land and timber.
Deforestation in Amazonia has proceeded with a sequence of various forces in different eras. An era known as “The Amazon Rubber Boom” lasted from 1880 during the creation of the pneumatic tire to the start of the commercial production of rubber from plantations in 1914 in Southeast Asia. Much of the agricultural land was discarded to inferior forest when the rubber boom collapsed.
The look of altered or ruined areas in Amazonia is directly connected to the progression of human occupation. Human involvement in the forest is centuries-old, they would make use of wood or non-wooden products, or for the performance of conventional slash-and-burn agriculture and brutal cattle-raising.
A good part of occupation began in the early 1940s, by the creation of the “Superintendence of the Plan for the Economic Valorization of Amazonia or SPVEA.” The major accomplishment was the construction of the Belem-Brasilia highway in the 1960s, which in addition, started the practice of deforesting near the roads for the establishment of villages and settlements. Quickly, additional roads were constructed with tax clauses, such as the Trans-Amazonia Highway, were formed for small-scale agriculture and concentrated cattle-raising in those settlements. Eventually, this decentralized rural-urban model failed and by the mid-1970s, a plan of large-scale projects was implemented as an alternative with a substantial addition of funds mostly wood extraction, cattle-raising, energy-production initiatives and mining.
As a result, the most important development projects such as “Polamazonia” and “Grande Carajas” mutually came to be with the opening of the Belem-Brasilia highway. These projects contributed to the deforestation of the Amazon. This form of progress based on large-scale projects that are still in action in the form of the so-called “axes of regional development”, “Avanca Brazil” and “Brazil em Acao”, also related to the opening and paving of roadways, by a extremely controversial environmental impact vs. benefit rate. Players:
The social factors are countless and difficult to understand. We all have heard plenty information and concerns about saving the Brazilian rainforest, but few of us, outside the scientific group of people in fact understand why a group of trees in South America are important to us. Fewer still realize the social, and eventually economic, costs that will accumulate now and when the rainforest of Amazonia is wiped from the face of the earth.
Commercial agriculture is a major threat to the region's biodiversity, as soybean farming and cattle ranching are among the most acute causes of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
Unsustainable subsistence farming is also a threat. At one time, many migrants were encouraged to settle in the Amazon region. But instead of adapting their farming methods, they simply continued to use the techniques they learned back home. Unfortunately these techniques were suited to other soils and climates and inadequate for the Amazon region. Because land productivity in the Amazon usually falls sharply after three years, migrants are then forced to move - only continuing the cycle of destruction.
During a 3 year study in São Paulo, Brazil, referenced as the “The Greenpeace report - Slaughtering the Amazon” is a detailed look into the countries cattle industry, the country's main supply of CO2 emissions as well as the largest single driving source of deforestation on record anywhere in the world. The study exposed the Brazilian government's involvement in bankrolling deforestation of the Amazon, as well as uncovering many of the top name shoe brands need for leather - such as Adidas, Nike, Reebok, and Timberland, may have caused cattle ranchers to illegally and unjustly slaughter animals in the Amazon.
Also mentioned in the report “Slaughtering the Amazon”, the tracking of leather, beef, and other related cattle products that are manufactured by ranches that are also involved in criminal and illegal deforestation of the Amazon as they supply these products to processing plants, distributers, and lastly the consumer public. This report also uncovers the need to end deforestation in the Amazon for its cattle population and the vital need of having people, industry, and governments collectively cooperate to establish a universal solution that protects our tropical forests to help control the outcome of changes to our climate better known as Global Warming.
“Brazil is the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world in large part because of deforestation-related emissions. The Brazilian cattle industry is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon and is driving climate change,” said Greenpeace Forest Campaigner Lindsey Allen. “To be true climate leaders, Nike, Adidas, Timberland and other brands must help protect the Amazon and our climate by refusing to buy leather from deforestation. In the fight against climate change, every step counts.”
Rain forests are critical to creating a balance to the world's climate due to the fact that they can store such a massive supply of carbon. In our Earths forest there is about 150 percent more carbon stored than there is in the Earth's atmosphere. It is estimated that in the Amazon rainforest, that it is believed to store anywhere from 80 to 120 billion tons of carbon. It is also believed that if the Amazon were to no longer exist, due to deforestation, it would release somewhere in the area of 50 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions that is produced in United States.
If we want to also prevent disastrous change in climate, we need to preserve our world's rainforests. Deforestation of our tropical rain forests can be responsible for up to 20% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, producing more than all the cars, trains, planes, trucks, and ships in the combined in the world today combined. This is exactly why organizations as Greenpeace are lobbying for a Zero Deforestation in the Amazon. Greenpeace is also lobbying for worldwide solutions to preventing deforestation as well as climate change. Why we should care:
The rainforest is one of the oldest and most diverse ecosystems in the world. Very few ecosystem biomes that were in existence during the time of the dinosaurs still exist today, but scientists say that the rainforests is one of them. This large area of time has allowed animals and plants to evolve into an amazing array of flora and fauna of every color, shape, size, texture, and genetic sequence.
25% of prescription drugs used in the United States came from plants in the rainforest. Because the vast majority of the Amazon rainforest has not been catalogued, the exact number of species in the Amazon rainforest is unknown. The World Bank estimates that. 10% of all the world's species live in the Brazilian Amazon and most of them are found only in that area.
Summary: The destruction of the Amazon rain forest has continued even as governments and environmental groups have been trying to slow it down for years. Saving the Amazon rain forest is vitally important for many reasons. First, 25 percent of the pharmaceuticals consumed in the United States are derived from plants in the rain forest. The Amazon rain forest plays a significant role in global weather patterns. Finally, the Amazon rain forest is home to thousands of species of plants, animals, and birds: Destroying the forest means destroying the wildlife. The threats to the Amazon are numerous and include commercial logging, urbanization, and multinational corporations. However, some progress is being made in the battle to save the Amazon rain forest. In April 1998, a new initiative established a protected area of 25 million hectares (62 million acres), with plans to increase this protected area in the future.
Conclusion:
Brazil is a land of extraordinary beauty and incomparable biological diversity. Due to this reason, deforestation in the Amazon is particularly worrying. As environmental losses and degradation of the rainforests have still avoided to reach the point of ruin, the ongoing disappearance of wild lands and loss of species is alarming.
Biodiversity is what makes life on Earth habitable for our species. By extinguishing hotbeds of biodiversity, such as the Amazon rainforest, we are destroying a part of ourselves. Biodiversity will recover after deforestation stops, until this happens; the continuing loss of effected species will make the Earth a quite crowded, but lonely place.
History has shown it can take as much as 5 million years to restore biodiversity to the point that it was prior of the extinction occurrence. Our actions today can decide if Earth will be biologically corrupted for the next 500 trillion or more humans that will live on the earth during that future period of time.
The events that is causing deforestation are occurring as you are reading these words rivals the destruction of Earth natural disasters, such as, “global ice ages, planetary collisions, atmospheric poisoning, and variations in solar radiation.” The difference is that these events that result in deforestation are being caused by humans and our decisions. We are the last line of defense as well as the best hope for life as we know it on our planet.
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