Causes of Reduced Biodiversity in the Amazon Forest

by ineedhelp123 (student)

Explain in two paragraphs the "causes of rainforest degradation" diagram.

Amazonian deforestation in the global context:

The diagram is like a complex circle. It shows the Amazonian deforestation in the global context.

Countries from all over the world have fears of different diseases. North America and Europe for example have fear of the avian flu and Russia and China have fear of BSE. That’s why more and more countries don’t want to get their products from Asian countries, which is mostly the origin of those diseases. This leads to an increase in global demand for other parts of the world (e.g. Latin America). This high increase again leads to pressure and as a result a rise in commodity prices, technological progress, rise in land prices and devaluation of Brazilian currency boosting exports. This again leads to a massive deforestation of Amazonia in Latin America. There’s a land speculation by clearing forest. This area can be converted into cattle pastures or into soya fields, which both also have a development in transport and industrial infrastructure as a result. The conversion also brings a rise of land and food prices, which has two main outcomes: food displacement of small farmers and indigenous communities and controversial land claims which is also a result of the right to claim more cleared land. Those two main outcomes lead to rural violence and assassinations.

Causes and consequences of deforestation:

Causes: There are several causes of deforestation: Cattle ranching, small-scale, subsistence agriculture, fire, mining, urbanization, road construction and dams. Cattle ranching is the most known cause. Ranching is a more extensive way of raising cattle, which often involves horses, lots of cattle and over 1,000 acres of land. Since 1990 the number of cattle increased strongly. It has more than doubled from 26 million to 57 million in 2002. A huge rise in beef export has lead to a rise in production. Also the revaluation of the Brazilian currency made ...

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Causes and consequences of deforestation:

Another cause of deforestation is that they are pushing subsistence farmers further into the forest and encourage the developments of new roads and other infrastructure.

Licensing theoretically strictly controls logging in the Amazon, which allows timber to be harvested only in certain areas. However, the environmental group, Greenpeace, estimates that 60-80% of all logging in the Brazilian Amazon is illegal.

Consequences: Many tree and plant species are at a risk of extinction due to deforestation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature calculates that there are about 382 plant species and 343 different types of mammals in Brazil at a risk.
Large-scale deforestation could also lead to global warming. The Amazon absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide, which is very important for us. But when they cut too man trees down the absorption of carbon dioxide would strongly decrease. Forecast of the forest’s future predict that deforestation will continue. The WWF thinks that by 2030 30% of the forest will be lost if deforestation continues at this high level and these climate conditions.

3. Take notes on the social, economic, environmental and political consequences of rainforest degradation.

Social consequences: For local people the quality of life would improve rapidly when a forest first cleared. The monthly average income would be at the beginning at 68%, go up to 83% and would drop down to 69%. The new available natural resources in an area of a cleared forest attract investment and infrastructure. Improved access to education, medicine can be developed due to new roads and an increased overall income gives people better living conditions. But when the resources dry up, you lose the source of income. A lot of agricultural land is only productive for a few years. Also the population would be much higher due to the attraction of the area. This would push the standard of living down again. It shows that chopping down the Amazon rainforest to make way for crops or cattle has no social benefit for local people in the long term.

Economic consequences: Payments to reduce carbon emissions from the forests could generate more income than palm oil production on deforested land. Palm oil is an important feedstock for biodiesel. That’s why many companies clear and often burn swathes of forest to grow their crops. Rainforests also affect both local and global food supplies directly by altering regional and global climates, but they also represent a vast wealth of information and potential future food sources we have yet to discover.

Environmental consequences: Due to humans who clear the natural landscape to make room for farms and pastures, to harvest timber for construction and fuel, and to build roads and urban areas tropical forests of all varieties are disappearing rapidly. When farmers completely deforested an area, they burn the trees and vegetation to create a fertilizing layer of ash. After this slash-and-burn deforestation, the nutrient reservoir is lost, flooding and erosion rates are high, and soil often becomes unable to support crops in just a few years. If the area then is turned into cattle pasture, the ground may become compacted as well. This could slow down and prevent forest recovery. About half of all Earth’s species live in tropical rainforest. When area is totally deforested the species is lost, the plants and animals in the fragments of forest that remain also become increasingly vulnerable. As more trees are felled, there will be fewer trees to absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the process of photosynthesis. Thus, the global carbon dioxide level is expected to increase in the greenhouse effect.