Amazon Conservation Team: The Amazon Rainforest

Environmental

The Amazon rainforest has a huge role not only in the forest itself but in our future and with the way we humans live. Daily, the Amazon provides the world with things such as medicines, fruits and nuts, spices, and of course some of the air that we breathe. The Amazon rainforest itself absorbs over two and a half billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. It also releases over two billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With the deforestation of the Amazon increasing with time, less trees are being used to control the intake and outtake of the carbon dioxide. Other than releasing the carbon dioxide the rainforest also is responsible for twenty percent of earth’s oxygen. The Amazon additionally generates the hydrological cycle, which

provides rain in many towns in Brazil. The rain also helps with Brazil’s hydroelectric dams and Argo-industry, which are in the central and southern regions of Brazil. Soil erosion occurs more frequently in the rainforest due to the deforestation as well as coastal flooding since the trees are not in place to retain some of the water. Not only does the rainforest have a huge role in people’s lives it also has a huge role in all animals’ lives. The Amazon houses over fifty percent of Earth’s animal species. With all of the roads that are being built into the rainforest, more dangers are also being made to the wildlife that inhibit there. There would be more human-wildlife conflicts and much of the wildlife could be injured by cars passing through. The Amazon is also used to provide ingredients to make medication for people around the world. The rare plants (Amazon Rainforest Breathes In More Than It Breathes Out, 2014).
Even though it looks like no one is doing anything to help there are over a dozen organizations that are trying to help conserve the Amazon and many other rainforests around the world.

Although there is other rainforests that are in need for helping, the Amazon is looked at more due to its increasing rates of deforestation. The biggest organization that helps with this is The Amazon Conservation Team. The organization began back in 1996 and the founder was Dr. Mark Plotkin and Liliana Madrigal. Plotkin was an ethnobotanist, Madrigal was a conservationist, and both wanted to begin to conserve lands around the world, especially the Amazon. The Amazon Conservation Team has done many projects that involve with planting and conserving trees around the rainforest. The team has planted over two hundred and fifty thousand trees since the beginning of the organization. Another organization that has helped quite a bit with conservation of the Amazon as well as others, is the Rainforest Foundation. The Rainforest Foundation was created in the year 1989 by Jean-Pierre, Sting and his wife Trudie Styler. This foundation has funded projects that have protected more than twenty-one million acres in the

Amazon.