Amazon Rainforest Research Paper

The amazon rainforest is in danger. In the past 40 years, the amazon has been reduced to 80% of what it was in the 70s. The amount cut down is roughly equivelant to the size of Chile. Everyday, loggers illegally cut down trees to sell and export them to the global market, illegal roads are built for further access to the amazon, trees are burned down and wasted to clear space for cattle pasture, housing, or farming. These people who want to make money off of the amazon’s land, do not care for the forest, they only want to invade the forest. The amazon produces half of its rainfall with the mouisture it releases into the atmosphere. if another 20% of trees are destroyed, it will begin to dry out and die. The amazon rainforest is a sacred and

This unique ecological system houses over half of the world’s species of animal, plant, and insect. The rainforest is like the air-conditioner of the world; a single tree converts CO2 into oxygen. Multiply that across land the twice the size of India and you have the biggest natural air conditioner in the entire world – the Amazon produces a fifth of the world’s oxygen that we breathe in. Not only would we lose this natural system, cutting down the Amazon’s trees would release at least 90 billion and at most 140 metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating the already quick pace of global warming that happening today. The Amazon rainforest is also a giant producer of fresh water, outputting 60 million gallons of freshwater into the Atlantic Ocean in a single second. In 2 hours, it produces a year’s worth of New York City’s water usage. The Amazon Rainforest is the biggest natural resource on this planet, and destroying the great ecosystem that has been fine tuned and refined over the span of over 200 million years is ridiculous and ignorant. With the immense amount of pure and natural resources it provides to every single human being on the planet, the Amazon Rainforest is so much more valuable alive than

However, the Amazon rainforest is targeted by loggers, big companies, black market sellers, and more because it holds expensive woods, rare animals and un-owned land. According to the WWF, during the last half century the Amazon has lost at least 17% of its forest cover to deforestation and there are more than 105,000 miles of illegal roads most made by loggers to reach mahogany and other hardwoods for the lucrative export market. If deforestation continues at current rate, 57% of the 15,000 tree species will be in danger, including Brazil nut, cacao and açai, and we will lose an average of 9 vertebrate species to extinction by 2050. Deforestation of the Amazon will also affect medical research and the production of many important medications, The U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70% of these plants are found in the rainforest. 25% of the active ingredients in today's cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest, for example Periwinkle is one of the world's most powerful anticancer drugs. It has dramatically increased the survival rate for acute childhood leukemia since its discovery. If deforestation continues as rapidly as it has until this point, we won’t just lose