Deforestation of the Amazon: Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions

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

However, due to more people searching for plots there is greater pressure on the amount of available land. The logging industry is responsible for a relatively small level of deforestation, accounting for 3% in Brazil. Consequently, all these activity contribute together to the rapid loss of what is left of the rainforest and a large proportion of the world’s biodiversity. All of the resources that the rainforest provides could be lost in the next 40 years.

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

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

Deforestation in the amazon was the result of farmers increasing their farms to hold the

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

Stewardship and economical asset use and how they apply to the Amazon Rainforest: Maybe the most perfect way to deal with location deforestation in the Amazon is by building up another insurance course of action in light of the principle of supportable usage and change of rainforests. Sensible change is an expression that has been used every now and again over the earlier decade, however savants will quickly tell you that assembling natural items, latex, and nuts from the rainforests is inadequate make a living also reinforce a creating economy. "Financial Improvement" should consider a shrouded thinking to be joined through technique to distinctive experts and business undertakings included in the usage and progression of rainforest grounds and resources. Under Brazilian law, a critical piece of the Amazon is fundamentally an open access resource, so there negligible catalyst for squatters, farmers, or originators to use timberland grounds or resources in a conservative way.

This policy memo addresses the development and expansion of the cattle ranching industry in Brazil, which has contributed to the mass deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon in the last 40 years. It exposes the regional and global consequences to deforestation and provides strategies for the Brazilian government to sustainably manage cattle ranching industries while protecting the future of the Amazon. The rainforest ecosystem is an immense reserve of natural recourses that is far more valuable than the beef produced on Brazilian cattle ranches. Not only does the rainforest create habitat for up to 65% of the world’s biodiversity, but when harvested sustainably, it provides humans with an abundance of spices, foods, oils, medicines

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

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

Have your eyes ever set on a barren land where even technology can’t reverse the damage we have caused? We care mostly for the present, but we must never forget to see to the future and in this case the deforestation of the Amazons. “Deforestation is considered the second largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere” (Song et al. 2). Each day we are wiping out miles of trees from one of our most diverse ecosystems in the planet, and one of our largest “lungs” in the world. At our rate of destruction of the rainforest, we would have inflicted in our future a great disservice, as the trees cut down would no longer give us clean air and more CO2 would pollute our air. CO2 can have a negative impact on our health. As we breathe in this air, it can lead to lung cancer and other diseases. By destroying the Amazon ecosystem we could drive many exclusive species that only live in the Amazon to extinction. Will we know the harm we have caused right away? Probably not, but we will definitely find out sooner rather than later. The cause of the Amazon deforestation is due to our need for wood to stay warm, and for developing countries to use it for fuel. Our top priority in conserving the Amazons is the unforeseen environmental impact that can be caused to our planet and to us. “Tropical deforestation also has other negative externalities, such as the loss of biodiversity, erosion, floods, and lowered water levels” (Jusys).

Rainforests have been declining rapidly over the last few decades. There are various factors responsible for this decline, resulting in serious impacts on the environment and the economy. Critically discuss the causes of deforestation and solutions to it.

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