Causes Of Deforestation In Brazil

Deforestation presents in an abundance of ways, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. The foremost reason of deforestation in Latin America is the requirement for food, fuel, shelter, and foreign exchange. Year on year, a space of tropical forest the size of Great Britain is "converted" from an area equal to the size of Europe. Ever since 1950, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), half of the world 's forests have disappeared. “Latin America has lost 37 percent of its tropical forests,” says the FAO. As more and more of Latin American forest are degraded, more and more detrimental effects are being seen. Deforestation is changing a number of resources for tribal groups, altering their way of life, temperatures are increasing at a dangerous rate because of a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, habitats and species such as plants and wildlife are being annexed due to the destructive effects of deforestation. Deforestation is inarguably helpful to supplying money to countries that sell the products from the forest, but huge wealth being generated from the forests comes with large-scale environmental and social costs. The local residences are not benefitting and the funds are being siphoned out of the region.

One of the biome which I found interesting was the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon Rainforest is region which is owned by more than 1 country because of its land mass. It is actually owned by 9 nations. This biome is situated in the amazon basin of South Africa. The Amazon Rainforest covers 5,500,000 km2 (2,123,562 sq mi) of total 7000000 km2 of the Amazon basin. This particular rainforest cover more than 50% of the world rainforest biome. So as to understand this particular rainforest biome better, I am going to talk about the Brazil part of the rainforest as it owns 60% of the rainforest. I found this particular

Deforestation poses an alarming threat to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, and it has been a serious concern for over 40 years. For thousands of years, the abundant, valuable resources in the Amazon were familiar only to the indigenous people of the region. In the 1500’s, before European colonization of Brazil, there were an estimated six to nine million individuals part of different cultures that made up a rich Amazonian society (“History”). Surrounded by the luxuriant rainforest and its natural resources, these indigenous tribes were able to thrive by utilizing the resources without destroying their habitat. After European emigration, the government of Brazil exploited the value of the Amazon’s resources in the twentieth century. In the 1970’s, the Brazilian government discovered the “untapped source of boundless potential” hiding in the Amazon and began using incentives to persuade settlers to develop its resources (Casey). Once economists realized the importance of the resources found within the rainforest, European pioneers set out to transform the Amazon into their home. By endorsing colonization, the government could not only boost the country’s economy, but also gain control over Brazil’s vast territory. The government supported migration to the rainforest and campaigned for the construction of infrastructure (“History”). In concurrence, the development of roads such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway, a 2,000 mile road built in 1972, granted people and machinery entrance to

Deforestation is defined as: “the clearing of virgin forests, or intentional destruction or removal of trees and other vegetation for agricultural, commercial, housing, or firewood use without replanting and without allowing time for the forest to regenerate itself” (SCRIBD). Deforestation has been a problem in Latin America since the early 1900s and the severity of the dilemma is increasing rapidly. Deforestation not only has consequences for the environment, but also, the indigenous people and the national economy. The logging industry in Latin America is often exploited by multinational companies that are not properly regulated. The land that has provided a home and cultivated indigenous development for centuries is being dissipated rapidly. Due to an exponentially growing global population, there is an increased demand for low priced goods--like timber, crops, and meat. Many Latin American countries value revenue from selling these goods over the health of their local ecosystems. The crisis of deforestation and habitat loss is shifting from a local to global problem. As deforestation continues, global warming escalates worldwide, impacting every country and person. About 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation, which is more than from all the world’s cars, trucks and buses combined (Schwartzman). Puerto Rico and Brazil provide contrasting examples of the impact of deforestation. Puerto Rico had an economic and environmental shift

In Middle and South America, it is evident that human interactions affect the physical features. The human interaction that affects Middle and South America is deforestation. In 1970’s a period of deforestation began in Brazil with the construction of the Trans-Amazon Highway; the road allowed migrant farmers to grow crops (Pulsipher & Pulsipher 2012). Deforestation continued throughout Middle and South America. The use lodging of hardwoods, extracting minerals, oil, gas, stones and clearing off land for raising cattle, and growing crops has impacted most of the land in Middle and South America (Pulsipher & Pulsipher 2012). The human interaction of deforestation has led to many environmental issues, changes in physical features. There are loss

The deforestation in the Amazonian rainforest of Brazil harms the environment and everything within it. Up to 30,000 species are expected to become extinct by the next centuries quarter due to deforestation. Oil is the number one leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon to sell to large corporate countries such as the United States of America. At 66 million tons of oil annually, 27 million hectares of land is used for oil plantations today and has a record of 700 land conflicts within the industry in just Indonesia alone. Many companies have tried to move protesters by promising a stop to deforestation, but many have overlooked this and proceeded to destroy the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, now resulting in protesters deaths by Brazilian police. It was recorded that in the past 20 years, 200 protesters have been murdered in a plea against Amazonian deforestation (Greenpeace 2016).

The Amazon Rainforest is the largest rainforest and river basin in the world. It covers around 2.1 million square miles of land, and exists in eight different countries and one French Territory. The Amazon rainforest is one of the most diverse places on the planet, accounting for ten percent of all known species, with more being discovered every year. But in this fragile ecosystem, people see opportunity to make money and a lifestyle, sometimes even illegally, trying to profit in the logging, mining, and agriculture industries. However, these industries help contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest.

Another cause of deforestation is infrastructure building. Road construction perhaps contributes the most to eventual levels of deforestation and degradation because roads encourage urbanization (itself responsible for a further 10% of deforestation) and the spread of agriculture into forests, particularly in remote areas where property rights are unclear or poorly regulated. The construction of the Interoceanic Highway connecting Peru and Brazil cuts a swathe through the Amazon jungle.Infrastructure projects such as roads are linked to about 10% of total deforestation in the developing world.

The Amazon rainforest was first being cleared for crop and logging production, but after realizing the economic success of cattle ranching, cattle pastures became the leading reason for deforestation. Different sized ranches, mainly large, made up about 70% of the deforestation that was going on in the Amazon. According to the research done by, Philip Fearnside, “all of the profits made from beef cattle have been the only income source that made the deforestation in the Amazon profitable.” Though cattle ranching have made a major impact on the Amazon, the biggest impact of deforestation was caused by the building of the Transamazon Highway in 1970. The goal of this enormous highway was to connect Brazil with its neighboring countries in South America. This highway connects different plantations in Brazil and its neighboring countries by constructing trucking routes that make transporting crops easier. (Fearnside

Since 1978 over 750,000 square kilometers of forests have been destroyed and deforested in the Amazon forest across Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. Brazil has the largest area of forest removed annually from the Amazon. Many terrestrial ecosystems in the Amazon are affected significantly by the impacts of deforestation. The Amazon is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. Its rainforests are known to be home to millions of plant and animal species. With the increasing deforestation that is taking place, many of those species and their habitats are under a great threat. Every species that disappears from the ecosystem due to deforestation can destroy the survival chances of another species in the Amazon.

During the past 30 years, deforestation in the Amazon has been a huge problem. The Amazon Rainforest is home to an estimated one-third of all known animal species and makes up about half of the world’s rainforests. The reasons for the deforestation is to expand pastures for cattle production, and fields to grow soybeans. ("Brazil Geography-Introduction." N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2016.)

The government not being able to monitor the deforestation of the Amazon cause a large areas of the forest to be cleared. One of the main reason it was cleared was for cattle. Brazil needed to cut budget their budget, so the cut 74 % of from forest protection between 2011-2014. Crime networks have illegal logging operation set up in the Amazon that it is also contributing to deforestation rate. If this keep up more carbon dioxide will be release to the atmosphere. The climate observatory's executive secretary warn country the they need to make sure they are doing everything to control global warming. The Brazil have to warn about not just deforestation casuing emissions of carbon dioxide, but using more fossil fuels. The Brazil's Congress have approve a bill to use coal, which will have a negative effect on the climates. This article show if deforestation is not control it will led to negative to the effect climate in the long

The Amazon rainforest location is in South America. It could be describe as a jungle and the area where it location is known to belong to about nine different countries. It is however know that the Amazon rain forest belong mostly to brazil because according to McGann (2005) Brazil has 60% of the total area which the forest occupy.

There are a number of negative effects of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon such as climate change, extinction of endemic species of rich biodiversity and destruction of home of indigenous people. First of all, climate may vary and deteriorate because of deforestation. Especially green house gas emission could have significant impacts on earth residents. Because it is calculated that Amazon rainforest contains about 10% of all carbon in the world, which total release will be disastrous. The deforestation of Amazon is responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions which are the results of logging and burning of Amazon could have serious impacts to the whole world, including global warming (Butler, 2007). For instance, increase of 0.8 C from 1880 was indicated and especially two last decades of 20th century were hottest ones. Moreover, effects of it can be considerably felt in Alaska, Eastern Russia and Canada, where the double increase of temperature compared with total average was indicated (National Geographic News 2007). Another damage that deforestation could make is runoff of Amazon River. It is estimated that if “widespread deforestation” arise, there will be 20% increase in runoff, which could be

As the countries that own the wood do not have the technology available to manufacture such products, the wood is sold at a cheap price, as it is a primary resource. Loggers cut down 10's of trees to get to the valuable hardwood trees they want, which themselves often bring down many trees around them. Logging in the Amazon is closely linked with road building. Studies by the Environmental Defence Fund show that areas that have been selectively logged are eight times more likely to be settled and cleared by shifting cultivators than untouched rainforests because of access granted by logging roads. Logging is the second largest cause of deforestation.