Rainforests today are disappearing at an fast rate as a result of deforestation for purposes such as logging, agriculture, and livestock. Countries like Brazil say that the economies need these industries and that deforestation of the amazon necessary. “Apart from emphasizing the sheer scale of the mightiest rainforest in the world--even the loss of a Texas-sized patch leaves more than 80 percent of it intact--these comparisons are not very useful for helping the concerned citizen judge what is really going on in the Amazon” (Hirsch 12). Deforestation in the Amazon has be occurring for over 50 years. Until recently though, scientist had not began to research the impact removal of the trees has in the Amazon. To understand why the Amazon is …show more content…
“Reaching a peak of more than 27,000 square kilometers in 2004, it fell to only 11,000 square kilometers lost between August 1, 2006 and August 1, 2007… this still means the annual loss of an area of forest larger than Lebanon, but it represents a drop of nearly 60 percent in the deforestation rate,” stated by Tim Hirsch, the Senior Programme Officer for Engagement at the Global Biodiversity Information Center. The reason for the deforestation of the Amazon has changed from the past to the present. Driscoll and Flynn mentioned, “The primary reason for deforestation in recent years has been to clear land for cattle grazing. As a result, Brazil has become the second largest exporter of beef, and hosts some of the largest ranches in the world.” Cattle grazing was a small part of the reason for deforestation early on, but now it is one of the main reasons. Hirsch states, “the cattle in the Amazon region had reached 74 million in 2007… cattle numbers in the Amazon had grown 46 percent in just three years,” tying in with what Driscoll and Flynn mentioned earlier. Since 1970 until 2014, deforestation was “estimated to be about 600,000 square kilometers” (Driscoll and Flynn 1). At this pace, it could cause some serious problems with the environment in the future. Scientists have thought about all the problems that this could