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Environmental Sustainability with Deforestation in Brazil
Gabrielle Deppoleto
Brazil, a country of natural resources running everywhere needing saving, destroyed everyday by humankind. with 2/3’s of the Amazon forest home in brazil, we must keep an eye on how it is being sustained, what is being done to keep it safe and when we believe we will be able to not only stop deforestation, but grow back the earth’s creatures natural habitats. The sheer beauty of our world is worth trying to help our ecosystem and helping the environment and ensuring its sustainability.
Through 2002-2003 brazil has lost more than 24,000 Kilometers squared of the Amazon forest. Together is has been estimated that they have lost more than 500.000 of the Amazon forest. Brazil has decided not to just put their efforts into reducing the lost of the Amazon forest but also they are focusing on the already loss of the forest. Trying to see what and how that can utilize that area. To lessen future forest loss they are think that they must try and increase and sustain the productivity of their farms, pastures, plantations, and scrubland in addition to restoring species and ecosystems to the habitats that were destroyed or are currently trying to be preserved and extended. Brazil is also trying to restore their natural resources and rainforest by reducing wasteful land-use practices, while consolidating (making the best of) gains on existing cleared lands, and improving already developed lands they will try to diminish the need to clear any more rainforest. they are also trying to use our new age technology to generate higher yielding crops in the surrounding areas of this forest, regenerating the soil...
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The introduction of cattle ranching industries in the 1960s set the forefront for current Brazilian rainforest deforestation figures. During this time, development subsidy programs encouraged Brazilians to clear rainforest for pastureland and invest in new cattle ranches (Pancheco). Over the last 40 years, Brazil has destroyed 700,00 square kilometers of rainforest, an area about the size of Texas (BBC) (Enchanted Lear...
Tropical rainforests are an extremely unique and diverse ecosystem that are located around the earth’s equator. They once covered roughly 7% of the world, but due to human encroachment that has dwindled to just 2%. It is a highly moisture rich environment that typically receives anywhere between 60 and 400 inches of rainfall annually and average humidity ranges from 70 to 90%. A high average year round temperature, coupled with the moisture rich environment, creates an ecosystem that allows for a level of biodiversity seen nowhere else on the planet. This also results in a specific type of layering design that allows the system to survive and recycle its nutrients.
The Amazon Rain Forest Is in Danger of Being Destroyed" by Devadas Vittal. Rain Forests. HaiSong Harvey, Ed. At Issue Series. Greenhaven Press, 2002. Reprinted from Devadas Vittal, Introduction: What Is the Amazon Rainforest? Internet: http://www.homepages.go.com/homepages/d/v/i/dvittal/amazon/intro.html, November 1999, by permission of the author. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=OVIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010021212&mode=view
Brazil is located in Eastern South America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It is slightly smaller than the U.S., with bordering countries Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia, French Guyana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. It has many natural resources, including bauxite, gold, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, platinum, tin, uranium, petroleum, hydropower, and timber. The climate is tropical in the north, but temperate in the south. The terrain consists of mostly flat to rolling lowlands, with some plains, hills, mountains, and a narrow coastal belt. In recent years, environmentalists have become increasingly concerned over the future of the Amazon region, where human life has threatened the world's largest intact rain forest. Brasilia is the capital and main source of modern industry.
Roughly half of Bolivia is covered in forests. However, this amount is decreasing yearly due to a variety of economic and social causes that are representative of the developing world. In the last decade, Bolivia is one of the ten countries with the highest rate of forest loss (Muller, Muller, Schiehorn, Gerold, Pacheco). Until the mid 1980’s, the Bolivian forests were unaffected because the country’s revenue came from mining and agriculture within the communities (Muller, Pacheco, Montero). However, the collapse of tin mining led the unemployed miners to settle and begin farming. Also around this time, mechanized agriculture started to be favored because of the ability for greater trade. The three major sources of deforestation in Bolivia
The Amazon rainforest is perhaps the richest collection of plant and animals diversity in the world. It recycles rainfall from coastal regions to the continental interior, providing water for Brazil’s inland agriculture. Big industries like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, and Cargill have established industrial soy plantations in Brazil that are taking over large plots of land in the Amazon rainforest (Food for Thought). Soy has been popularized in the past decade as a healthy protein substitute for the restricted diets of vegetarians and vegans. In the past 40 years, soybean production has increased by 500% (Soy Benefits). International demand for the soybean has been on the rise, and with it comes an increase in deforestation and environmental degradation.
Deforestation is fast becoming one of the world’s worst environmental/geographical occurring disasters known to mankind, and is due to humankind’s greed, ignorance and carelessness when considering the future of our environment.
Nowadays deforestation is the one of the most important and controversial environmental issues in the world. Deforestation is cutting down, clearing away or burning trees or forests. Particularly tropical rainforests are the most waning type of forests because of its location in developing countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, central African countries and Brazil. Deforestation rate in those regions is high enough to worry about, because of large economic potential of forest areas. As the result of causes such as agriculture land expansion, logging for timber, fire blazing and settling infrastructure there might be serious impacts in future. For instance, extinction of endemic species of animals and plants which will be feral, increase of greenhouse gas emissions which may lead to global warming and consecutive catastrophes, destruction of home for indigenous residents which is considered as violation of human rights. Some people can argue with these drawbacks telling that deforestation have more valuable benefits such as growth of economics, production of food and providing better opportunities for life for poor families. However, these benefits are quite temporary and government of that countries and world organisations tries to halt deforestation proposing several solutions. Deforestation problem is especially acute in the Brazilian Amazon, where its rate is much high comparing with other regions. This paper will describe world-wide rainforests, causes and effects of deforestation, and evaluate possible solutions of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
In South America lies the largest and most wondrous rainforest in the world, the Amazon Rainforest. This 1.4 billion acre forest represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most bio-diverse tract of rainforest in the world. Ten percent of all known species on the planet are found in this rain forest, most of which have yet to be discovered. For the past century, the Amazon has been gradually decreasing in size due to agricultural expansion, ranching, infrastructure projects, energy exploration and illegal logging. In its current state, the Amazon is losing land equal to the size of the state of Delaware every year.
The Amazon Rainforest is the world's largest tropical rainforest that we have today on our planet. It covers a wide range expanding almost entirely across from East to West of South America. It is most famous for its broad biodiversity and includes the famous Amazon River that is home to rare and diverse species. Today, the Amazon Rainforest is under threat of complete deforestation and has greatly lost more than half of its tropical rainforest due to cattle ranching, soy bean farming, sugar cane plantations, palm oil and biofuel agriculture. The indigenous people are doing their best to fight against the government to protect their land and conserve the rainforest but without capital finance, it is seeming to be an impossible project.
The local countries strongly eager to earn money quick, for example by exporting timber, so they cut down large areas of trees without efficiently replanting. Brazil, well known of its Amazon Rainforest, has the second highest rate of deforestation in the world (It was the first before 2012). By 2012, about 13% of Amazon rainforest in Brazil was lost. Brazilian residents cut and burn down large areas of forests for multiple uses such as cattle ranching, soybean farming, mining activities and logging. This makes Brazil one of the world top countries in producing beef, soybeans, minerals and timber.
They have fought to keep the world healthy, and keep the biodiversity of the rainforests. The rainforests contain 750 types of trees, and 1500 types of flowers, including 125 species of mammals and almost 400 species of birds, the rainforest connects each and everyone of the listed species. Experts and studies show that due to deforestation, the world is losing more than 100 species of birds, insect, mammals, plants, and others. Also some of the species haven’t even been discovered yet. Brazil has lost more than 132,00 square kilometers of rainforests due to deforestation in 2000-2005, and since 1970, Brazil has lost more than 600,000 square kilometers of rainforest land.
United Nations, (2013) the millennium development goals report 2013 [ONLINE] United Nations. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/publications/mdgs-report-2013.html [Accessed on 26 December 2013]
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) create a common set of development goals for all communities worldwide. The aim is to get governments, aid organisations, foundations, and non-governmental organisations on the same page about which global problems require immediate attention and the solutions to resolve these issues. These goals were born at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The objective was to produce a set of universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges facing our world. The SDGs work in collaboration with each other to make the appropriate choices for present generations to improve life for future generations in a sustainable way. These seventeen