Deforestation of The Amazon Rainforest

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.

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.

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

The Amazon Rainforest is a mighty jungle filled with an array of exotic species of wood, like mahogany, and rich natural resources such as gold, copper, tin, and nickel. Naturally, people want to make a profit, but the rainforest’s trees stand in the way. Logging is the main source of deforestation. Every year, millions of trees are cut down to be made into timber. Many times, these logging operations are illegal. These operations will keep exploiting the Amazon for its exotic timber, not caring that many of these species of plants are either rare, or help support rare species and ecosystems. Mining also creates deforestation, but not as severely as logging. Trees are cut down to make way for mining operations that dig for non renewable resources like copper and gold. Trees are also used as charcoal to help produce pig iron. A third cause of deforestation is agriculture. Cattle ranches and soy plantations are created where the Amazon Rainforest once stood. As people expand their farms, they must cut down the areas they now use for farming. Trees are also cut to make space for animal pens. Governments also contribute to the deforestation problem by building roads and creating infrastructure. Although these roads help with communication and navigation, they cut through the rainforest, and often help illegal loggers create new roads from their operations in the jungle to these roads that connect with civilization. All of these factors have helped cut down the Amazon Rainforest. In the past

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

Individuals have been deforesting the Earth for a large number of years, fundamentally to clear land for yields or domesticated animals. "Deforestation" is the lasting devastation of timberlands with a specific end goal to make the area accessible for different uses; what's more, as indicated by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization an expected 18 million sections of land of backwoods, which is generally the nation's extent of Panama, are lost every year; Although tropical woods are to a great extent bound to creating nations, they aren't simply meeting nearby or national needs; monetary globalization implies that the needs and needs of the worldwide populace are hunkering down on them also.

Brazil has been said to be one the of the most beautiful and pleasant places on Earth, but with the secrets hiding behind their closed doors, will they even last long enough in their dying nation to see the success that tourists do? Brazil is on the path to collapse because they are unable to survive as a nation on their own. According to CNN, “⅓ of Brazilian Southerners vaguely favor some form of secession.” Brazil has a weak central government, they don’t pay much regard to the tremendous financial crisis and debt, and one of their most beautiful locations is on the verge of moribund. Citizens of Brazil have paradoxically been reported to feel “alienated” because their own government seems disinterested in public affairs and do not directly address them.

When the majority of the population is exposed to the words, “the Amazon”, through some form of written or spoken communications, most likely their initial, instinctive response is to visualize the Amazon rainforest as it is portrayed by a staggering amount of both past and present media outlets. This portrayal tends to be one consisting of a vibrantly colored rainforest, brimming with an abundance of diverse and exotic flora and fauna, and, a thriving and well-balanced collection of ecosystems which is, frankly, not even remotely accurate to the actual Amazon rainforest. Behind its deceptive facade endorsed by television, books, and occasionally even news, the Amazon rainforest occupies many dark truths relevant to degradation of the state of the earth’s various ecosystems and environments. Over the last several decades the Amazon has undergone numerous dramatic and, in fact, damaging changes all of which have been attributed to the area’s extensive deforestation.

The economic benefits of deforesting the Amazon are endless and with the nation of Brazil in control roughly 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest (Oswald 1), one can only imagine the economic prosperity it brings to the country. For instance, 65-75% of the land used after deforestation (Oswald 1) goes towards creating space cattle ranching which is big business in Brazil as Brazil is the largest exporter of cattle in the world. The exported volume of cattle achieved 264 822 tons in 2012, and generated USD 1.220,316 million in exports (Duran 1). This shows how Brazil has supported the world’s economy by being a leader in the exportation of cattle. Additionally, cattle ranching in Brazil has created many jobs within the country and has drastically improved the country 's economic state. The cattle beef industry generates about 360 000 direct jobs as well as thousands of jobs among inputs suppliers, moving almost USD 2 billion in domestic inputs (Duran 1). Clearly, cattle ranching is a vital industry for the well being of the Brazilian economy however, the short-term economic benefits of deforestation are more than offset by long-term impact to both the environment and the population of Brazil.

When small farms sell their land to large companies (or the corporation deforests their land as an illegal land claim), the equilibrium of the rainforest is thrown off balance. While natives have long been sustainably cultivating the land, large companies are concerned with quick profit. It is estimated that around 120,000 hectares of land have been deforested to make way for soy. Road are the most comprehensive indicator of frontier expansion and deforestation in the Amazon (Cesario

Crash! There goes another tree, plummeting down to the Earth, in the Amazon rainforest. There goes less oxygen we breath everyday. There goes another living thing. The Amazon rainforest is suffering, and as the rainforest suffers, so do we. Business people usually don’t care about the Amazon, and, probably, use paper made from the rainforest trees, but that’s because they didn’t do their research in middle school. Some people say that the Amazon rainforest are the lungs of the Earth, but they could also be the heart as well. If we don’t save this rainforest, then our planet, along with us, with scourge gravely.

Deforestation has been a problem for the region of the Amazon Rainforest for many years. Demand for the wood from Amazon trees is consistently high. The wood of the Amazon is harvested through the process of logging. This is most certainly not a sustainable practice. The amount of trees cut down each year is much higher than the amount of trees that are replanted annually. Many plant and animal species that only exist in this unique environment are becoming extinct due to deforestation. While this is a serious problem for the region, there is a much larger problem with global consequences that results from deforestation. As an extremely large amount of photosynthetic organisms (the trees) are destroyed in one small area, the CO2 that would

Brazil ranks first in the world in arable land and fifth in the world in territory and population. They have a “soils sustain a bountiful agricultural which they produce the world’s leading exporter of coffee, orange juice, sugar, tobacco, ethanol, beef, and chicken.”(pg.273) Deforestation became a major issue in Brazil. Due to the fact of “removing the rainforest results directly from logging operations, but more of it is now a matter of clearing space for land occupation by settlers as well as the expansion of large-scale agribusiness.” (pg.278) Brazil economy have grown over the years after the new policies that was passed made a sufficient in the manufacturing in Brazil.

Marcio Astrini, a coordinator from the Amazon campaign, a convention that makes donations to save the rainforest, says, “You can’t argue with numbers, this is not alarmist, it’s a real and measured inversion of what had been a positive trend” (Newstrack). Marcio is one of the people who thinks the Rainforest is important to the people in South America and North America. Scientists have come up with different solutions to help the rainforest, but also for people to get their resources. Governments of Brazil make up laws to save their rainforest, so they try to add nature reserves or place a law that farmers and lumberjacks to chop down trees from a different forest. This effort should continue because it could help the Amazon Rainforest to continue to grow new trees. This could allow the rainforest to grow larger than before. The Rainforest is the biggest out of all of the forests out there, the Brazilian governments are struggling with what laws would be effective to pass on. Their congress established regulations “limiting forest burnings, logging, and large landholdings” (Johnson

Brazil is addressing the SDGs goal of sustainably managing forests, combating desertification, halting and reversing land degradation, and halting biodiversity loss by implementing laws to limit deforestation, taking action to protect the Amazon, and promoting the drastic damage of deforestation. Brazil has established laws that preserve the Amazon. Brazil’s economy, as well as other economies worldwide. have realized the long-term economic value an intact rainforest offers. Laws have been made to protect the Amazon, like declaring “over 50% of the forest national parks”(McCarthy). Furthermore, Brazil has enacted a “national moratorium”(McCarthy) on soybean farming on recently deforested land. Soybean farming, in addition to cattle farming,