Deforestation has greatly impacted the tree population of the amazon rainforest. In Brazil, half of the tree species in the Amazon are at risk of extinction. Many tree species have already been lost. An estimated eighteen million acres of rainforest is lost on earth per year. This massive tree loss is due mostly to illegal tree logging in Brazil. Legal and illegal logging accounts for 10,000-15,000 km^2 of deforestation in the Amazon per year (Nepstad et all 2002). Loggers illegally harvest the timber and then sell it globally. Companies illegally harvest the wood by creating fraudulent paperwork and then gathering wood from areas of the amazon that are considered “protected”. It is hard to detect what wood was harvested illegally after it …show more content…
“Loggers routinely submit applications to exploit land that they have no intention to log. Instead, they apply the credits they receive to timber stolen from elsewhere” (Greenpeace, 2014, p. 3). Trees in the Amazon have a wide variety of niches in the rainforest. Without trees, we would not be able to have many natural resources. Entire species would loose their habitats and go extinct. The shade from trees protects people from the sun, especially in areas close to the equator where the sun is the hottest. Trees have many emergent properties. Emergent properties are properties seen when viewing the organism in relation to its own ecosystem. Trees provide shelter and protection for other animals with their branches. There are four layers of a rainforest. The emergent layer, canopy layer, understory layer, and forest floor layer. Three out of these four layers contain areas of a tree. The emergent layer is the tops of the highest trees. High trees in the Amazon can reach two hundred and fifty feet tall. Creatures that live here help pollinate the rainforests plants. The canopy layer is the branches and leaves of the amazons