Maddie PophamMrs. PikeGlobal Issues17 December 2017Brazil Environmental Issues: Deforestation Brazil is facing one of the many issues the U.S has today, deforestation.
As time goes on people are being more aware of the situation but I’m afraid it will be too late. The Amazon Rainforest, the biggest rainforest in the world have been suffering a loss of deforestation. This can affect the loss of biodiversity, natural disasters which can all lead to one big and disastrous issue, climate change. At this rate of cutting down trees for agriculture, we could potentially lose all trees on Earth increasing the risk of low oxygen in Brazil and potentially the whole world. Since of August 24th, Brazil has demolished trees the size of Denmark (Watts).
In Brazil, deforestation started around the 1970’s and 1980’s to begin making roadways for transportation. In this time, Brazil governed resettlement programs to attempt to populate the region but then, failed to cause a waste of the trees. The Institute for Rural Settlement and Agrarian Reform encouraged for farmers to resettle in the Amazon Rainforest causing the cut down of more trees for resettlement for their cattle. This later increased in the 1990’s with farmers owning medium to large properties for their cattle. Some major issues in the Amazon consisted of small-scale subsistence agriculture, large-scale commercial agriculture, logging, and construction such as mining, urbanization, road construction, and dams. Out of all of those cattle ranching took a toll on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon has affected 70% of deforestation and will continue to increase if cattle ranching and other major causes continue to progress (Butler). Deforestation has been noticed in Brazil and people have tried to stop it but have failed.
For instance, many officials got deforestation to decrease in 2010 by 67% (….). Though the situation changed when in March of 2015 the government of Brazil stated that the past year has increased in deforestation. The causes of this were because of the revisions made to the Brazilian Forest Code that relaxed regulations on forest clearing for many landowners.
Allowing them to cut down more trees for their uses. The UN has tried to help with deforestation in Brazil but unfortunately, it might be at a cost. The UN made a Paris agreement in 2015 to decrease greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in Brazil. As of 2017, the UN has already paid 36.6 million dollars to the Forest Services and the Brazilian government. Unfortunately, Brazil wants more money for reducing deforestation for the protection of carbon gas or the greenhouse effect.
Sarney Filho stated,”Combating deforestation is reaching its limits,” he said. “If we don’t demonstrate that forest-maintenance services should be paid, we’ll have trouble.” As deforestation increases in the Brazilian Amazon, Brazil is going to face some nasty effects such as loss of biodiversity, climate change, and natural disasters, like flooding. The Amazon rainforest is home to 10% of all plant and animal species known in the world. It ranges from 400 different types of mammals species to 1,300 different types of birds, to 400,000 different plants (Greenpeace). All of this biodiversity needs to be kept because each animal or plant species have a role to play on this Earth. By cutting down trees and presenting an issue of deforestation, we are allowing wildlife to go extinct which could eventually lead to climate change because we are disrupting the way of life on Earth.
Natural disasters like flooding are presenting more in the Amazon Rainforest because of deforestation. The lack of trees allows water to flow more easily than stop it from causing more damage. By cutting down trees, we destroy the vegetation that lives within and vegetation helps soak up water that is present. No vegetation and no trees can cause the more damage from flooding. Another huge effect of deforestation is the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases are gases that when released into the atmosphere can trap heat in the atmosphere, keeping the Earth much warmer which, unfortunately, leads to climate change. Trees are able to trap the carbon dioxide, methane, and Nitrous oxide from reaching the atmosphere. Climate change can be a huge risk because it can affect the whole ecosystem as a whole and bring disastrous changes in our lives.
st In conclusion, we can try to do little by little of helping the environment. The Brazilian Amazon remains with 20% of rainforest (Taylor). We need to change now because studies show that by 2030 the Amazon Rainforest will be gone. Some solutions are to recycle, go paperless,
