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Overview Of Deforestation In The Brazilian Amazon

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The Amazon is a vast region of dense tropical rainforest that covers roughly 40 per cent of South America. The Amazon is predominant in northwest Brazil, as well as eight other developing countries in South America such as Colombia, Peru and Venezuela (World Wide Fund for Nature, 2015a). The Amazon is thriving with biodiversity: the Amazon river accounts for 15-16% of the world’s total river discharge into the oceans, with an average discharge of 219,000 m3/sec of water (Voeroesmarty, et al, 1989). Additionally, the rainforest harbors 10% of the world’s known species, including approximately 16,000 tree species (Steege et al., 2013).
Exploding human populations are irreversibly destroying the environment at an accelerating rate: one and a …show more content…

The majority of processes that cause deforestation are human-induced and can heighten the background rate of species extinction by 100 to 1000 times (Rangel, 2012). The primary cause of deforestation in the Amazon is cattle ranching, which makes up around 65-70% of all deforestation (Butler, 2014). Cattle ranching has been the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon since the 1970s due to a rise in beef exports (BBC News, 2008). The second biggest loss of forest derives from small-scale, subsistence agriculture (20-25%), followed by large-scale, commercial agriculture (5-10%). Logging – legal and illegal – is responsible for 2-3% of forest loss and a further 1-2% is due to fires, mining, urbanization, road construction and dams (Butler, …show more content…

Factors that may have an effect on animal species include edge effects, isolation, and a reduction in forest size. Newly created edges may cause micro-climatic changes and can lead to the intrusion of non-forest species, triggering a reduction in population size. Furthermore, many species are often unable to survive in small areas of forest left behind. A reduced forest size can make species more accessible to hunters and poachers, reducing population size and occasionally leading to species extinction, reducing biodiversity (Zuidema et al, 1996; World Wide Fund for Nature,

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