I. Importance
The Amazon Rainforest is perhaps the largest and most important terrestrial ecosystem in the world. Home to 30% of all the species known to man (“Importance”), the biodiversity contained within the Amazon Rainforest is unrivaled by any other ecosystem. Encompassing an area roughly the size of the continental United States (“Amazon Rainforest”), the Amazon Rainforest is home to 390 billion trees from 16,000 species, 40,000 plant species, 5,600 fish species, 1,300 bird species, 430 kinds of mammals, 1,000 kind of amphibians, and 400 kinds of reptiles (“Amazon Wildlife”). In addition to the species richness and species diversity within the Amazon Rainforest, the 390 billion trees act as a carbon sink by absorbing and retaining large amounts of carbon in their leaves, branches, and trunks; it is estimated that Amazonian trees store 86 billion tons of sequestered carbon (“Importance”). Furthermore, the Amazon Rainforest is an integral part of weather patterns not only in South American, but also in the United States and Central America. In South America, the precipitation produced through transpiration in the Amazon Rainforest nourishes areas that produce 70% of the South America’s GDP (“Importance”). The Amazon Rainforest also provides indispensable ecosystem services that sustain the local population; small-scale logging and gathering stimulate the economies of small towns and villages, and the Amazon River provides a mode of transportation as well as a
Brazil’s rainforests and America’s rainforests are great examples of the negative effect that deforestation has on these specific areas. One of the rising challenges in our rapidly growing world is the destruction of rainforests and how it is slowly ruining the world that we live in. Deforestation has a lot of destructive impacts on the environment that is surrounding us, one of the most important being its effect on the climate. The fast rise in the world’s population, calling for high demand of resources, is only hastening the effects of deforestation, which can hopefully be put an end to through the enforcement of a handful of simple, key, and sustainable solutions.
Rainforests, forests, and jungles cover a massive part of our Earth. Every day, trees are being cut down. Henceforth, the trees carbon dioxide is being released back into the air. According to Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Fate of the Amazon, published by the non-profit organization American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Amazonian forests have a substantial influence on regional and global climates. Hence, their removal by deforestation can itself be a driver of climate change and a positive feedback on externally forced climate change”. If the number of deforested lands rises, our atmosphere will be full of carbon. Climateandweather.net concurs, “It is estimated that more than 1.5
The Interdependence of plants, animals, and humans is integral in the Amazon Rainforest ecosystem of the tropical rainforest biome. The key features of the Amazon Rainforest is the Amazon River. The Amazon Rainforest goes through Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and many other countries. Colombia has 10%, Brazil has 60%, and Peru has 13%. 80-90 degrees during the day and 50 degrees at night is the temperature of the Amazon Rainforest. There are dry and wet seasons. it gets 9 to 10 feet of rain a year. The terrain is in the Amazon Rainforest are rocky mountains, wetlands , plains, valleys, rivers, streams, and highlands. The dirt is poor with very few nutrients and it is very muddy. It is also dense with trees and rotting logs. The thin topsoils, made of decaying vegetable and animal parts, take up all the nutrients. In the Amazon Rainforest there 's the Congo River, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon River.
Rainforests are known to be critically important for human wellbeing and are often referred to as the lungs of the planet. This is because, rainforests not only absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen that all animals depend on for survival but due to the fact they also help stabilize climate, provide a home to many plants and animals, maintain the water cycle, protect the human population against flood, drought & erosion, and are a source for medicines and foods. Rainforest also happen to support tribal people and are known to be an interesting place to visit. Abiotic factors are referred to as non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems (Dictionary.com, 2017). Some examples of abiotic factors in the Amazon forest include water cycle, temperature and carbon cycle. Additionally, the living components of an ecosystem also referred to as the biotic factors (Dictionary.com, 2017) are elements of the Amazon forest. This includes the organisms living in the ecosystem and the present food chain. Altogether, these are factors and components that are seen in the Amazon forest, despite the deteriorating status of the rainforest due to human activities within the ecosystem. With these activities currently occurring, the amazon rainforest could potentially be eliminated if action is not taken.
What Is Amazon Rainforest, What Are the Human Activities In it and what effects do these activities have on the biome?
Today, the total percentage of forest cover of the earth is approximately thirty percent (“Deforestation”). That is about nine percent of the world’s total surface. The largest rainforest is the Amazon River Basin, located in South America. The Amazon is home to many species of animals, insects, plants and trees. Many of the trees and plants in the Amazon produce about twenty percent of the oxygen on earth, and absorb carbon. However, the Amazon is decreasing in size every day due to the ongoing deforestation of the land. Deforestation is when the forest of the land are cleared or destroyed, in order to be used for other actions (“Deforestation”). The Amazon is twenty percent less than it was about forty years ago (Wallace). In just about
The battle for the Amazon rainforest is a daunting task. It's a long going battle between miners, loggers, and developers against the indigenous people who call it home. It's a battle like any battle in a war; it affects lives, families, the economy, politics, and the environment amongst other things. The main topic of this debate is the effects of the Amazon deforestation on the people who live in it, this will be the focus of this research paper. In this paper, I will discuss the history, causes, effects and solutions for the Amazon rainforest deforestation.
There are also over 40,000 plant species; they don't call the Amazon "the lungs of the planet" for nothing. The rainforest plays an important role in maintaining local and worldwide climate. Yet, rampant deforestation is killing off native species of plants and animals. Industries, like agriculture, logging and mining, http://globalpublicpolicywatch.org/2014/01/14/deforestation-logging-and-mining-a-deadly-combination-for-the-amazon-rainforest/ are invasive and environmentally
The Amazon rainforest, known as well as the Amazonia, is considered as the “lung of the planet,” due to it produces about 20% of earth’s oxygen. The Amazon is contained by the countries of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and the three Guianas (Amazon Rainforest). Unfortunately, one phenomenon that has been affecting the Amazon rainforest is the deforestation; according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, deforestation is the transformation of forest to non-forest land cover by human activities.
One of the most growing environmental concerns of our planet is the loss of tropical forests. Tropical forests are depleting at an alarming rate. A rate where demand far exceeds the supply. Of all the forest habitats, none seems to be more threatened than the tropical rainforests, as the world loses up to 20 million hectares of these forests annually, an 80 percent increase over previous estimates. In 1950, 30 percent of the world 's surface was covered by rainforests. By 1975 this area had shrunk to 12 percent. Today, tropical forests account for about 8 percent of the planet 's surface, an area roughly equal to that of the United States, constituting slightly less than half their prehistoric cover. Findings have shown that Africa has lost 60 percent of its original rainforests and Central America and Southeast Asia have lost nearly two thirds.
As time goes by, the human population increase every year. This also means an increase
From the outside, Ecuador looks like a prosperous country. Its top exports include shrimp and oil, and it is the number one producer of bananas in the world. If you walked into a local market, you would be overcome with the variety of foods, colors, and smells. According to Britannica, Ecuador is also among the most diverse countries in the world, being one of nine countries to house the Amazonian Rainforest, as well as two deserts and four mountain ranges. While this country, 400 square miles smaller than the U.S. state of Nevada, seems to face little difficulty, it is the most food insecure and fifth most corrupt country in South America according to the Food Security Index and Transparency Intl. surveys in 2015. The problem lies buried six
The Amazon Rainforest is such a mysterious place to the world. With all of the animals and plant that are located in the rainforest, there is so much to learn from. This paper will mention the key points on the things that inhabit the rainforest, on effects of deforestation and the effects of the Amazon environmentally, socially, and politically. Deforestation has its toll on the amazon every day and that affects the way that the world runs. Erosion, flooding, and climate change are some of the out comes from deforestation ("Amazon Destruction", 2017). This paper will also talk about the positive things that the rainforest does environmentally. This rainforest balances out the carbon taken into the rainforest and the oxygen that is release
Tropical rainforests cover approximately thirty percent of the earth’s land area, around 2.5 million square miles, the size of the lower 48 states, despite the fact 80,000 acres (32,000) hectares are destroyed per day for economic reasons. Tropical rainforests are biodiversity hotspots. Rainforests are carbon sinks absorbing about half the carbon dioxide humans release into the atmosphere. Continued deforestation will affect the entire world with the ecological ramifications of species extinction, loss of carbon sinks, and loss of renewable resources. Deforestation reduces the availability of renewable resources like medicinal plants, timber, nuts and fruit, and indigenous game. Over time, loss of
A rainforest, by definition, is a tropical forest, usually filled with tall, densely fast growing, and broad-leaved leaved evergreen trees in an area with high annual rainfall (www.dictionary.com). It is a highly wooded area where it is warm the whole year. Rainforests are mainly located at and or near the equator. The first person to make up the term rainforest was the German botanist Andreas F.W. Schimper in 1898.