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Amazon Fire Reaction Paper 15

The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed at an alarming rate due to deforestation for agriculture and cattle ranching. Over the past 30 years, about 17% of the Amazon forest has been cleared, releasing large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. While exploitation of the forest's resources was intended to promote economic development, it has not improved living standards for local populations and has contributed to environmental degradation. To effectively protect the Amazon, a new conservation model is needed that balances sustainable resource use with biodiversity protection and generates economic incentives for local communities to preserve the forest.

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671 views5 pages

Amazon Fire Reaction Paper 15

The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed at an alarming rate due to deforestation for agriculture and cattle ranching. Over the past 30 years, about 17% of the Amazon forest has been cleared, releasing large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. While exploitation of the forest's resources was intended to promote economic development, it has not improved living standards for local populations and has contributed to environmental degradation. To effectively protect the Amazon, a new conservation model is needed that balances sustainable resource use with biodiversity protection and generates economic incentives for local communities to preserve the forest.

Uploaded by

Ben Soco
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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AMAZON RAINFOREST FIRE

In the past three decades, land use in the Brazilian Amazon has been
characterized by the intense exploitation of natural resources which has resulted in a
mosaic of human-altered habitats without effectively improving quality of life and income
distribution for the local population. About 17 percent of the Amazon forest, or 60 million
hectares – an area equivalent to France – has been converted to other land uses in the
past 30 years (INPE, 2008). Most of this area has been transformed into low-
productivity pastures. These changes were the result of former strong governmental
incentives for forest conversion and population migration to the region, characterizing a
development pattern at that time where forests were seen as barriers for economic
growth.

The trees in the Amazon forests contain 60 to 80 billion tonnes of carbon, more
than the global emissions generated by humans in a decade. Deforestation in the
Brazilian Amazon alone releases about 200 million tonnes of carbon annually,
accounting for 3 percent of global net carbon emissions and 70 percent of national
emissions (Houghton, 2005).

Around 1.5 million hectares per year are harvested for timber (Asner et al.,
2005), often using unsustainable practices that increase forest degradation and related
biodiversity loss. Almost one-third of the Amazon forest has been degraded by the use
of unsustainable practices. In addition, the summed effect of deforestation, degradation,
and poor harvesting and slash-and-burn agricultural practices puts millions of hectares
of forests at high fire risk. In El Niño years, forests are even more susceptible to fire
because long periods of drought make forests drier and result in accumulation of fuel
(dead leaves) on the ground (Nepstad et al., 2004).

Forest exploitation and conversion have not brought true development,


employment opportunities, better income distribution for local populations or
environmental benefits to the region. Currently, about 45 percent of the population of the
Brazilian Amazon has income below the poverty line.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon results from the complex interaction of


many direct and indirect drivers such as mining, logging, subsidies for cattle ranching,
investment in infrastructure, land tenure issues, low law enforcement and the high price
of grains and meat.

In recent years, however, large-scale agriculture has experienced sizeable


expansion and become the newest driver of deforestation in the region. Brazil is one of
the world’s top producers and exporters of sugar cane, soybean, oranges and other
products (FAO, 2008). In the nine states of the Brazilian Amazon, the area under
intensive mechanized agriculture grew by more than 3.6 million hectares from 2001 to
2004 (Morton et al., 2006). Particularly during this period, the greatest increase in area
planted to soybean was in Mato Grosso, the Brazilian state with the highest
deforestation rate (40 percent of new deforestation). By displacing cattle ranchers,
soybean production has pushed the Amazon deforestation frontier further north.
Between 2001 and 2004, the area deforested for cropland and mean annual soybean
price in the year of forest clearing were directly correlated (Morton et al., 2006). Forces
driving the expansion of mechanized agriculture include lower transportation costs as a
result of improved local infrastructure (roads, railroads, ports and waterways); higher
international soybean prices; increased soybean demand from European markets
because of the mad-cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy); and rapid
economic growth in China (9 percent per year) (Nepstad, Stickler and Almeida, 2006),
which consumes great quantities of poultry and pork fed with soybean.
e

AMAZON RAINFOREST FIRE


AMAZON RAINFOREST FIRE: REACTION PAPER

The Amazon rainforest is a tropical forest. The Amazon covers 2.5 million square
miles and extends across nine nations; with 60% of the rainforest, the majority of the
forest lies in Brazil. The Amazon embodies more than half of the planets remaining
rainforest it’s also the worlds biggest and most specie diverse tropical rainforest region.
The Amazon provides numerous natural resources to the world. With its ability to supply
20% of the earth’s oxygen through the planets continuously reprocessing carbon
dioxide into oxygen, the Amazon was nicknamed the “Lungs of our Planet. The Amazon
River which starts in Peru and flows for over 4,000 miles and meets the Atlantic Ocean
in Brazil is the Rainforests life supply. The Amazon Rainforest drainage is home to the
world’s largest biodiversity. Today tropical rainforests are disappearing from the face of
the globe. Despite growing international concern, rainforests continue to be destroyed at
a pace exceeding 80,000 acres (32,000 hectares) per day.

Tropical cover now stands at 2 billion hectares (7.7 million sq miles), an area
about the size of the United States plus China and representing around 13 percent of
the world's land surface. Much of this remaining area has been impacted by human
activities and no longer retains its full original biodiversity. Deforestation of tropical
rainforests has a global impact through species extinction, the loss of important
ecosystem services and renewable resources, and the reduction of carbon sinks.
However, this destruction can be slowed, stopped, and in some cases even reversed.
Most people agree that the problem must be remedied, but the means are not as simple
as fortifying fences around the remaining rainforests or banning the timber trade.
Economic, political, and social pressures will not allow rainforests to persist if they are
completely closed off from use and development.
So, what should be done? The solution must be based on what is feasible, not
overly idealistic, and depends on developing a conservation approach built on the
principle of sustainable use and development of rainforests. Beyond the responsible
development of rainforests, efforts to rehabilitate and restore degraded forest lands
along with the establishment of protected areas are key to securing rainforests for the
long-term benefits they can provide mankind. Historic approaches to rainforest
conservation have failed, as demonstrated by the accelerated rate of deforestation. In
many regions, closing off forests as untouchable parks and reserves has neither
improved the quality of living or economic opportunities for rural poor nor deterred forest
clearing by illegal loggers and developers. Corruption has only worsened the situation.

The problem with this traditional park approach to preserving wildlands in


developing countries is that it fails to generate sufficient economic incentives for
respecting and maintaining the forest. Rainforests such as the Amazon will only
continue to survive as functional ecosystems if they can be shown to provide tangible
economic benefits. Local people and the government itself must see financial returns to
justify the costs of maintaining parks and forgoing revenue from economic activities
within the boundaries of the protected area.

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