The Deforestation of the Ecuadorian Amazon Essay

The aim of this is to bring wealth to the area by using its natural

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 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.

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.

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

The Amazon rainforest the largest tropical area in the world, a vast and humid area where thousands of species of mammals, fish and insects have been unidentified by human; thus being the largest rainforest in the world, it is also the largest area of deforestation where football fields after fields are taken down a minute. The Amazon Deforestation being a growing issue amongst society in this generation can be prominently analyzed from the commodities derived from logging; to the negativity it can cause the environment as a result of erosion.

Deforestation is the clearing of a forest and/or cutting down of trees for human benefits such as agriculture, wood exports, etc. Deforestation is the cause of numerous environmental impacts such as habitat loss, flooding and soil erosion. It can also cause climate change, by reducing the amount of rainfall and changing the amount of sunlight reflected from Earth’s surface and increases the risk of forest . Tree growth is important for biodiversity because they absorb carbon dioxide which is a harmful greenhouse gas . However, since deforestation reduces natural carbon sinks, it disrupts the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air causing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air to increase. This poses a serious

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 Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world, covering one billion acres. The rainforest is predominately in Brazil, but also borders the countries of Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. The unique biosphere of the Amazon is a result of millions of years of evolution. The Amazon is a damp and wet climate; with so much rain the soils of the Amazon are thin, yet, they grow the some of the tallest trees on earth. In some parts of the rainforest, sandy soils are found, which have evolved through erosion over millions of years. The soils of the Amazon are the foundation of the rainforest and, although these soils have lost their mineral content and fertility, rich and lush rainforests grow on them (WWF, 2013). The atmosphere of the Amazon allows for organic matter to decompose expeditiously, creating high nutrient and fertile topsoil. However, organisms reabsorb these new nutrients as quickly as they were formed. The Amazon is home to one in every ten animals on Earth, and plays a vital role in regulating the global climate. Soy has contributed to deforestation and soil erosion in the Brazilian Amazon (The Growth of Soy, 2014). There is a delicate balance throughout the Amazon; this equilibrium allows for one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth to strive, yet, it is in jeopardy due to human impacts such as the cultivation of soybean monoculture. It is estimated in another 50 years, 40% of the Amazon will have

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.)

What if people died from suffocation? They did not have enough air that they died from suffocation. Trees are a big contributor that makes earth special and allows them to live. It produces the air they breathe and keeps the land they live on together. Deforestation causes a loss of forests, reduces biodiversity, and increases green house gases.

In the entire world, about 7 million square miles get enough rain to be rainforests, but as a result of human inhabitants, housing and buildings interfere. Most farmland on the earth is from deforestation of rainforest, and as these farms expand, more land is taken. When the land is cleared, it can either result in permanent or temporary deforestation, permanent clearly being the most environmentally harmful. If rainforest land is cleared, built on, and used frequently, the plants and trees will not grow back. However if a plot of land is left unattended, tree cover will return over time. In the Amazon rainforest, much of the land has been permanently taken from nature and the natives, shown by the fact that the number of natives has gone from around 7 million to less than 200 thousand in the area.

protect a substantial part of the diversity in the Amazon,” said Hans ter Steege, a

One in ten species in the world lives in the Amazon, which makes it the most biodiverse tropical rainforest in the world. This great expanse of rainforest harbors about half of all species on Earth. As large areas of this tropical forest are cleared by deforestation, entire species are vanishing, many of them unknown. The dense tropical forests also hold a large amount of carbon that is being released into the atmosphere because of deforestation. Although deforestation in the tropics is rapid and widespread, some people are making an increasing effort to mitigate potential disaster.

A study published by an international team of scientists warns the Amazon is being largely impacted by dams, mining, overfishing, and deforestation. In this transect the focus will be deforestation