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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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The Amazon, the plant’s largest rainforest, lost at least seventeen percent of its forest cover in the last half century due to human activity-- mainly clearing trees to create new or larger farms and ranches.” ( world wildlife news) This fact is proving that people are destroying so much of their nature just because they don’t want to move into a house someone else already lived in. People don’t think about the wildlife, they have priorities that are “ more important.” These animals dying off is really terrible and scary to think about for the future.

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Native Amazonians have been around longer than writing, they use the forest to survive (food, shelter, etc.) and I like to argue that, yes they are trying to save their forest but they also contribute to deforestation. If we want these people to continue living in their traditional manner in the rainforest and for us not to lose what used to be 14% of our earth’s land surface, we as people need to act and find other ways of surviving without rapid deforestation. To conclude, we know people aren’t doing much to replant trees at the same or faster rate than the deforestation process, based on the rate at which the rain forest has been deforested in the past 55 years, we know we’ve lost about 8% already and so we know we’re going to lose the forest within Forty Years, (no one expected that when they

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Since 1978 the Amazon rainforest has had more than 750,000 square kilometers destroyed of trees. The Loggers have contributed to this deforestation by cutting down trees in order to make different things. The Loggers want to use the forest to get wood to make things and to get paid for their job but by cutting down trees they cut down a very important source for many different things. The Loggers need to find new ways to get wood without cutting all of the Amazon rainforest down to make sure the rainforest does not disappear. Two ways they can do that is by cutting down fewer trees and cutting down trees in other places to avoid complete deforestation in the Amazon.

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1. Mann’s overall thesis is that the Native American’s way of life was very sophisticated and advanced for its time. Evidence of the Native American’s resourceful way of life is illustrated in their ability to manipulate their environment. Mann states that it is likely that the Indians shaped the land more than the Europeans have over the course of 250 years. The Indians literally created their environment through the use of fire so it would be easier to hunt for prey.

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(Document 3) In Brazil, many people are moving into the Amazon. Brazil does not have the resources to supply the entire population because of urbanization. The people that moved to the Amazon started cutting down trees, which led to the deforestation of the Amazon. Animals are not only the ones living in the forest, but humans live there too.

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By reintroducing large mammals to ecosystems from which they has been gone for thousands of years, it can result in the recovery and restoration of many ecosystems such but it can has the opposite effect in the ecosystem which can result in a complete unbalance of the ecosystem (Rubenstein, Rubenstein, Sherman & Gavin,

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When a certain species is removed from their ecosystem, it can have effects on their prey and their predators. Their prey’s population would increase, and their predator’s population would decrease due to their being nothing for it to eat.

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Animals and plants become at risk for extinction, or endangerment, when environments and ecosystems are changed by human activities or other natural causes (Wright & Boorse, 2014). Regrettably, human activity is usually the source of environmental change and endangerment to a species through pollution, over-consumption, and in some regions of the world, over-population (Wright & Boorse, 2014). Also attributable to the destruction of a species, are the human activities that result in habitat loss and the introduction of an exotic species into foreign ecosystems (Wright & Boorse, 2014). Human activity is not solely to blame, as each species also has natural predators; however, habitat loss, relating to economic development, appears to be the

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The Brazilian Amazon is home to 40% of the world’s tropical rainforest. Incidentally, it also has the world’s fastest rate of deforestation. Tropical Rainforests around the world are lost at the rate of one acre per second with the average rate of Brazilian Amazon being such that 2 million hectares of forest land are cleared every year. There are multiple causes for this extensive rate of deforestation and this paper will address four such causes namely (1) rapid population growth, (2) industrial logging and mining, (3) changing spatial patterns of deforestation, and (4) wildfires. Moreover, there are several Brazilian state policies that encourage deforestation practices of which this paper will look at five key aspects – (1) taxes on agricultural income, (2) rules of land allocation, (3) land taxes, and (4) tax credit schemes and subsidized credits.

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“Rafael Orjuela is a communal leader who lives in Remolinos del Caguan, a village located eight hours by river from the capital of Cartagena del Chaira, a municipality that, according to 2015 official figures, was first among in deforested areas of Colombia. Of the 23,812 hectares of forest cleared in Caqueta, 20% of the total deforested in Colombia, 10,822, were lost mainly due to the expansion of the agricultural frontier. He arrived at Remolinos del Caguan in the early eighties and recalls that the guerrillas who at the time ruled the forests that connect the eastern cordillera with the Amazonian savannas told everyone that coca crops were drastically decreasing, so they had to clear more land. Although deforestation in Caqueta has been a long-term problem, just late last year the Colombian government decided to prioritize deforestation control plans. Rafael Orjuela estimates 20,000 hectares of forest were cleared only in Cartagena del Chaira after FARC 's departure.

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Deforestation results in the loss of biodiversity Deforestation is having its most devastating effect on biodiversity in tropical rainforests. The destruction of millions of hectares of forests by human activities means: • The removal of the bases of numerous food webs • The loss of habitats for many species of flora and

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