amazon rainforest 1 page essay

The Amazon Rainforest: Essay Example

The amazon rainforest: essay introduction, the importance of the amazon rainforest: essay body paragraph, the facts about the amazon rainforest: essay body paragraph.

The Amazon rainforest, the largest rainforest on Earth, encompasses an area roughly the size of the United States (the 48 contiguous states), contains most of the plant and animal species found on the planet and contributes to weather patterns on a global scale.

This natural wonder is disappearing at an alarming rate due to deforestation and with it the animals, plants and eventually humans will disappear as well. This applies to all plants, animals and humans, not just those who inhabit this region of South America.

If the Amazon rainforest disappears, the entire human race will likely suffer the same fate resulting from the climatic changes that would result. This disturbing scenario has been well documented by environmental organizations, governmental studies, independent agency reviews and scientific journals spanning the past three decades from which this discussion will draw.

The Amazon rainforest represents close to half of the world’s rainforest regions. Estimates of its size vary but the general consensus is that the Amazon rainforest covers approximately seven million square kilometers. It represents 40 per cent of the South American continent encroaching on nine of its countries including Brazil, Suriname, Bolivia, Guyana, French Guyana, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela.

The greatest portion (62 per cent) lies within the boundaries of Brazil. This massive area, if a single country, would rank sixth largest in the world and is at least half the size of the entire European continent. (Amazon Life, 1998)

The seemingly boundless rainforest is shrinking at a rapid pace due to deforestation, however, which will soon result in grave consequences for both the region and the planet. “Land-use conversion is occurring at unprecedented scales and in a complex manner.

As in other humid tropical forest regions worldwide, negative consequences include losses of biological and cultural diversity, changes in the regional and potentially global climate, and an increase in social conflicts.” (Kommers, 2007)

Deforestation describes the removal of trees along with other types of vegetation. Since 1970, at least 20 per cent of Amazon rainforest has been lost from deforestation. This figure could be under-representative because it does not include trees that have been felled by selective logging techniques which are less noticeable than clear-cutting yet causes considerable harm.

Ecologists and scientists warn that another 20 per cent will be lost within the next 20 years. If this were to occur, the ecological system that sustains the forest and thus the planet’s weather patterns will start to disintegrate. At present, the Amazon rainforest generates half of the rainfall it consumes but the removal of an additional 20 per cent will impede this phenomenon to the point where much of the remaining forest will die from lack of moisture.

The rising temperature of the Earth, due to global warming, will exacerbate the situation and cause droughts which will lead to massive wildfires in the region. Instead of life-giving oxygen which is now furnished by the lush rainforests, the fires will expel great amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Given this very real and impending scenario, it is difficult to imagine how the human race along with all other life on earth could continue to live. Today, the greenhouse gases emitted from Brazil ranks near the world’s top polluter, the U.S., because of the slash-and-burn techniques used to clear the rainforest. “The danger signs are undeniable.” (Wallace, 2006)

Simply stated, if immediate action is not taken to reverse the present trend of deforestation, the immense Amazon rainforest will soon become a desert region not unlike the Sahara in Africa. Once this process is underway, the effects are irreversible. Some scientists believe the transformation from forest to desert could begin as early as this year.

Studies have determined that the Amazon rainforest, even in its current state, could not withstand three years of drought conditions without beginning the irrevocable path to becoming the Amazon desert.

This result, in and of itself, is tragic enough but the repercussions to the rest of the world would be as catastrophic. “Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable.” (Lean, Pearce, 2006)

The Amazon rainforest has been characterized as the ‘lungs of the world.’ It is astonishing that though people know that without trees, they are without oxygen, the trees keep falling at increasingly larger rates. Trees are a resource that can be replenished if cutting is managed properly yet this has been anything but the case in the Amazon.

The collective rainforests of the world act as a climatic sponge storing much of the world’s rainwater, of which the Amazon rainforest accounts for more than half. Trees in the rainforest recycle water drawn from the forest ground.

This, combined with the moisture that evaporates from the leaves is released into the atmosphere from whence it came. If not for this enormous amount of rainwater supplied by rainforests, rivers, lakes and land masses would essentially dry-up spawning droughts of epic proportions. Irrigation farming would be greatly curtailed. Disease, starvation and famine on a worldwide scale will be the direct result of deforestation.

Trees cleanse the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and providing oxygen. Burning trees in the rainforest increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and at the same time reduces the amount of trees needed to absorb it. This contributes to global warming, a phenomenon which is already threatening the survival of the planet. (“Why” 2007)

There are further, often less publicized, repercussions of the Amazon rainforest’s deforestation. As trees are removed from the rainforest, soil erosion becomes an increasing concern. The nutrients needed for the tree’s roots to thrive are contained in a rainforest soil that is surprisingly lacking in nutrients.

The bulk of the nutrients are stored within the massive number of trees whose collective canopies protect the rainforest soil from the torrential downpours that would otherwise wash the soil away eventually allowing the rivers to flood low lying areas. The mass clearing of trees is the obvious threat to soil erosion but selective cutting is too.

The soil does need some nutrients in order to hold the tree’s roots firmly which it gains when trees die and decay on the ground. Fewer numbers of trees to feed the soil will lead to lower quality soil thus fewer trees still, a process that is essentially irreversible. The rain forest is also home to indigenous tribes, many who have become extinct in the past three decades.

Some have estimated that more than 100 entire tribes have been lost in recent years. After living harmoniously with nature for untold thousands of years, deforestation has deprived these indigenous peoples of the land which provided them housing, food and medications. Many were killed by the diseases brought in by the loggers or outright while attempting to protect their homes.

Medicines that originate from rainforest plants are not only important to the indigenous tribes but to the rest of the world population as well. More than a quarter of contemporary medications were derived from rainforest plants but only one percent of these plants have been tapped for their medicinal value.

Therefore, the potential for life-saving medicines yet discovered is tremendous. “Rainforests and the native populations who discovered these medicines could hold the cure of many more diseases if we would only nurture the forests and allow their people to show us.” (“Why” 2007)

Loggers do not wish for the rainforests to vanish, if for no other reason, because their livelihoods depends on it. They claim the world would have to stop using wood for the demand to diminish. The demand, not the supply is destroying the rainforest. In addition, if this unlikely scenario were to happen, commercial ranchers, tribesmen and miners would continue to clear trees at an enormous rate.

The ever-expansive soybean farms and wealth of precious metals in the region assure the continued deforestation with or without the presence of loggers. The various South American governments’ position is similar to the loggers in that they do not wish the rainforest to be destroyed because of the financial hardship it would cause.

This stance is eerily similar to the U.S. position on global warming, that to tackle the problem would not be economically feasible. Both seem to be quite content to sacrifice the future of the planet’s inhabitants for short-term political or economic gains. Environmentalists cite previously mentioned catastrophic global concerns and the tribes’ people lament the destruction of their beautiful and exotic homeland. (Taylor, 2004)

The proliferation of soy bean farming has negatively impacted the Amazon rainforest. The soy farmers hold much influence in South American countries’ governments. Beyond the massive clearing of trees to provide more farmland, the soy farmers continually persuade government officials to expand roadways which allow more of those with both legitimate and illegal commercial concerns access to increasing larger amounts of rainforest areas.

As in logging, the blame can largely be pointed at the demand-side. For example, multinational food chains Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds have been criticized for “underwriting deforestation in the Amazon through its purchase of soy-based animal derived from soybeans grown in the Amazon Basin.” (Deforestation rate, 2006)

Environment Secretary David Miliband proposed offering sections of the Amazon rainforest to be sold to private individuals, associations and businesses for strictly preservation purposes. This would compensate the governments and stop the deforestation, at least in those regions. The Brazilian government quickly dismissed the proposal citing the possible undermining of its autonomy.

Brazil is implementing a monitoring scheme to track illegal logging which it contends will slow the destruction of forests. However, these 150 new government employees will be greatly susceptible to corruptive tactics used by logging companies. (Kage, 2007)

Though selective logging is damaging to the rainforest, this technique is less damaging than clear-cutting. “If the forest is not too heavily disturbed during the logging, rates of re-growth and carbon accumulation can be quite rapid following a clearing.” (Wolfe, 2003) However, this can only be a temporary solution because partially cleared forests are no substitute for untouched forests, ecologically speaking.

Local governments of the Amazon region have been less than helpful in curbing the destruction of the rainforests. In fact, not only has few, if any, resolutions to the problem emanated from local authorities, many have actively thwarted attempts to save it.

Local authorities often act in conjunction with drug cartels (gangs) and ranchers who profit from the clearing of rainforests. Because of the impoverished conditions which rampant throughout the region, corruption also runs rampant. The governments of the region cannot be counted on to improve conditions now or in the future. The only viable method of preserving the rainforests is to appeal to the economic realities of the region.

More prosperous countries should, one, stop buying from companies that exploit the rainforest’s resources and two, employ Miliband’s privatization plan. Saving the Amazon rainforest is a good idea whether or not its destruction would also likely kill most everything on earth.

Even if all the scientists, environmentalists, government and scholarly studies were proved 100 percent wrong and nothing outside a few desolate tribes, some frogs, snakes and birds would notice if the rainforest was transformed into desert, it would still be worth saving at any cost due to its beauty, uniqueness and numbers of species and medicinal potential. Much as the global warming issue, whose destiny is tied to deforestation, even if climate change due to carbon monoxide emissions were proved a myth, reducing air pollution still makes sense.

“Amazon deforestation rate plunges 41 percent.” (October 26, 2006). Mongabay.com.

Kage, Ben. (January 19, 2007). “Brazilian government authorizes controlled logging in Amazon rain forest.” News Target.com.

Kommers, Nate. (2007). “Maps Show Diverse, Widespread Human Pressures on Brazilian Amazon Forests.” Press Release. World Resources Institute .

Lean, Geoffrey & Pearce, Fred. (July 23, 2006). “Amazon rainforest could become a desert.” The Independent.

Taylor, Elizabeth. (June 10, 2004). “Why are the Rainforests being destroyed? Are loggers the real problem?”

ThinkQuest Team. (1998). Amazon Life.

Wallace, Scott. (December 15, 2006). “Brazil’s Dilemma: Allow widespread – and profitable – destruction of the rain forest to continue, or intensify conservation efforts.” National Geographic.

“Why are the Rainforests Important?” (2007). R ain Forest Concern .

Wolfe, Jason. (January 21, 2003). “ The Road to Recovery .” Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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Case Study: The Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon in context

Tropical rainforests are often considered to be the “cradles of biodiversity.” Though they cover only about 6% of the Earth’s land surface, they are home to over 50% of global biodiversity. Rainforests also take in massive amounts of carbon dioxide and release oxygen through photosynthesis, which has also given them the nickname “lungs of the planet.” They also store very large amounts of carbon, and so cutting and burning their biomass contributes to global climate change. Many modern medicines are derived from rainforest plants, and several very important food crops originated in the rainforest, including bananas, mangos, chocolate, coffee, and sugar cane.

In order to qualify as a tropical rainforest, an area must receive over 250 centimeters of rainfall each year and have an average temperature above 24 degrees centigrade, as well as never experience frosts. The Amazon rainforest in South America is the largest in the world. The second largest is the Congo in central Africa, and other important rainforests can be found in Central America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Brazil contains about 40% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforest. Its rainforest covers an area of land about 2/3 the size of the continental United States.

There are countless reasons, both anthropocentric and ecocentric, to value rainforests. But they are one of the most threatened types of ecosystems in the world today. It’s somewhat difficult to estimate how quickly rainforests are being cut down, but estimates range from between 50,000 and 170,000 square kilometers per year. Even the most conservative estimates project that if we keep cutting down rainforests as we are today, within about 100 years there will be none left.

How does a rainforest work?

Rainforests are incredibly complex ecosystems, but understanding a few basics about their ecology will help us understand why clear-cutting and fragmentation are such destructive activities for rainforest biodiversity.

High biodiversity in tropical rainforests means that the interrelationships between organisms are very complex. A single tree may house more than 40 different ant species, each of which has a different ecological function and may alter the habitat in distinct and important ways. Ecologists debate about whether systems that have high biodiversity are stable and resilient, like a spider web composed of many strong individual strands, or fragile, like a house of cards. Both metaphors are likely appropriate in some cases. One thing we can be certain of is that it is very difficult in a rainforest system, as in most other ecosystems, to affect just one type of organism. Also, clear cutting one small area may damage hundreds or thousands of established species interactions that reach beyond the cleared area.

Pollination is a challenge for rainforest trees because there are so many different species, unlike forests in the temperate regions that are often dominated by less than a dozen tree species. One solution is for individual trees to grow close together, making pollination simpler, but this can make that species vulnerable to extinction if the one area where it lives is clear cut. Another strategy is to develop a mutualistic relationship with a long-distance pollinator, like a specific bee or hummingbird species. These pollinators develop mental maps of where each tree of a particular species is located and then travel between them on a sort of “trap-line” that allows trees to pollinate each other. One problem is that if a forest is fragmented then these trap-line connections can be disrupted, and so trees can fail to be pollinated and reproduce even if they haven’t been cut.

The quality of rainforest soils is perhaps the most surprising aspect of their ecology. We might expect a lush rainforest to grow from incredibly rich, fertile soils, but actually, the opposite is true. While some rainforest soils that are derived from volcanic ash or from river deposits can be quite fertile, generally rainforest soils are very poor in nutrients and organic matter. Rainforests hold most of their nutrients in their live vegetation, not in the soil. Their soils do not maintain nutrients very well either, which means that existing nutrients quickly “leech” out, being carried away by water as it percolates through the soil. Also, soils in rainforests tend to be acidic, which means that it’s difficult for plants to access even the few existing nutrients. The section on slash and burn agriculture in the previous module describes some of the challenges that farmers face when they attempt to grow crops on tropical rainforest soils, but perhaps the most important lesson is that once a rainforest is cut down and cleared away, very little fertility is left to help a forest regrow.

What is driving deforestation in the Amazon?

Many factors contribute to tropical deforestation, but consider this typical set of circumstances and processes that result in rapid and unsustainable rates of deforestation. This story fits well with the historical experience of Brazil and other countries with territory in the Amazon Basin.

Population growth and poverty encourage poor farmers to clear new areas of rainforest, and their efforts are further exacerbated by government policies that permit landless peasants to establish legal title to land that they have cleared.

At the same time, international lending institutions like the World Bank provide money to the national government for large-scale projects like mining, construction of dams, new roads, and other infrastructure that directly reduces the forest or makes it easier for farmers to access new areas to clear.

The activities most often encouraging new road development are timber harvesting and mining. Loggers cut out the best timber for domestic use or export, and in the process knock over many other less valuable trees. Those trees are eventually cleared and used for wood pulp, or burned, and the area is converted into cattle pastures. After a few years, the vegetation is sufficiently degraded to make it not profitable to raise cattle, and the land is sold to poor farmers seeking out a subsistence living.

Regardless of how poor farmers get their land, they often are only able to gain a few years of decent crop yields before the poor quality of the soil overwhelms their efforts, and then they are forced to move on to another plot of land. Small-scale farmers also hunt for meat in the remaining fragmented forest areas, which reduces the biodiversity in those areas as well.

Another important factor not mentioned in the scenario above is the clearing of rainforest for industrial agriculture plantations of bananas, pineapples, and sugar cane. These crops are primarily grown for export, and so an additional driver to consider is consumer demand for these crops in countries like the United States.

These cycles of land use, which are driven by poverty and population growth as well as government policies, have led to the rapid loss of tropical rainforests. What is lost in many cases is not simply biodiversity, but also valuable renewable resources that could sustain many generations of humans to come. Efforts to protect rainforests and other areas of high biodiversity is the topic of the next section.

LEARNING TOOL

Local and global effects of deforestation in the amazon rainforest.

Students analyze a map to identify and describe multiple landscapes in the Amazon rainforest, the organisms that inhabit those landscapes, and the role of the forest in the water cycle and nutrient cycle. Then they construct a scientific argument for the effects of deforestation on the local ecosystem and the water and nutrient cycles.

Geography, Human Geography

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Preparation

• Materials You Provide: Pencils
• Physical Space: Classroom
• Setup: Students will need to be in participant structures that allow for whole class discussion as well as small group work. A space that allows students to move freely between these structures is needed.
• Grouping : Large-group instruction
• Other Notes: This activity is intended to be conducted in three, 50-minute class periods: Day 1—students explore the map and construct knowledge about the water and nutrient cycles and the organisms that live in different landscapes of the forest; Day 2—students construct arguments; Day 3—students present arguments.
• map reading skills
• ability to select evidence from maps and text that supports a claim
• ability to obtain, evaluate, and communicate information from media and text resources

Rainforests are disappearing at an alarmingly fast pace, largely due to human development over the past few centuries. Once covering 14% of land on Earth, rainforests now make up only 6%. Since 1947, the total area of tropical rainforests has likely been reduced by more than half, to about 6.2 to 7.8 million square kilometers (3 million square miles). Many biologists expect rainforests will lose 5-10% of their species each decade. Rampant  deforestation  could cause many important rainforest habitats to disappear completely within the next hundred years. Throughout the Amazon, mining and logging operations clear cut to build roads and dig mines. The Amazon is also threatened by massive hydroelectric power projects, where dams flood acres of land. Development is encroaching on rainforest habitats from all sides.

More than 20% of the world’s oxygen is produced in the rainforest. The rainforest is also a carbon sink, which means it helps to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. With rapid deforestation, it has been estimated that 20% of the Amazon rainforest has disappeared in the last 50 years, which has already led to detrimental effects to biodiversity and climate change.

There are many species of plants and animals that live in the Amazon rainforest and are endangered or threatened, including primates such as the spider monkey and red-handed howler monkey. When large trees are removed, the large canopy that provided shelter, food, or nesting for some of these species disappears, resulting in relocation and possible fragmentation of some populations. Changes made to the ecosystem affect all life that lives there, but for the endangered or threatened populations, these changes could challenge their survival.

Students will:

• use a map to identify the areas of habitat loss in the Amazon rainforest due to deforestation
• use a map to identify landscapes about the role of the rainforest in maintaining the water and nutrient cycles
• use a map to construct knowledge about the role of the rainforest in maintaining the water and nutrient cycles
• construct a scientific argument that includes a claim, multiple pieces of evidence from a map, and scientific reasoning for the effects of deforestation on the water and nutrient cycles and the plants and animals within the local ecosystem

Teaching Approach: Learning-for-use

Teaching Method: Cooperative learning

Skills Summary

This activity targets the following skills:

• Information Literacy
• Communication and Collaboration
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Environmental Literacy
• Global Awareness
• Understanding
• Acquiring Geographic Information
• Analyzing Geographic Information
• Analyzing and interpreting data
• Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
• Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

1.   Activate students’ prior knowledge about the local and global environmental effects of deforestation.

Introduce the activity with a discussion about students’ local area and the organisms that live there. Ask students to brainstorm what roles trees might play in the forest. Then have students brainstorm consequences to the plants and animals that inhabit the local ecosystem if all the trees were removed. Introduce the term deforestation and share that deforestation is of major concern in the Amazon rainforest. Ask the guiding question: How does deforestation in the Amazon rainforest affect the water cycle , nutrient cycle, and plant and animal life? Facilitate a whole-class discussion around the Habitat Loss inset map with a focus on Deforestation on the Amazonia: The Human Impact side of the map. Explain to students that they will explore the layers of forest and different organisms that live there along with the role trees play in the nutrient and water cycles to understand the effects of deforestation.

2. Construct knowledge about the role of trees in the Amazon ecosystem.

Distribute the map Amazonia: Vital and Fragile and the worksheet Role of Trees in the Amazon. Have students use the map to explore different types of vegetation, the landscapes of the forest and how they provide different habitats for the organisms that live there, and the role trees play in the water and nutrient cycles. Ask students to complete Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the worksheet.

3. Construct an evidence-based argument for limiting deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

Divide students into small groups and distribute a copy of the worksheet Constructing an Evidence-Based Argument, to each small group. Direct groups to construct an evidence-based argument for the need to limit deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Distribute the Evidence-Based Argument about Protecting the Trees in the Amazon Rainforest Rubric and discuss the rubric criteria as a class. Explain to students that they should use their work from the completed worksheet, Role of Trees in the Amazon, to help identify the evidence they need to support their claim(s).

4. Have students present their arguments.

Have small groups share their arguments about the importance of limiting deforestation in the Amazon rainforest with the class. Conclude with a whole-class discussion reflecting on the potential loss of plants and animals in the Amazon rainforest and the potential changes to the water and nutrient cycles due to deforestation. To wrap up the activity, ask: What is deforestation? What are the effects of deforestation to the plants and animals in the Amazon rainforest? How would the water and nutrient cycle be affected by deforestation? 

Alternative Assessment

Collect evidence-based arguments from small groups and use the provided rubric to assess groups’ final arguments.

Use the provided answer key to check students’ completed Role of Trees in the Amazon worksheets.

Extending the Learning

• Have students discuss how the different type of water (black, clear, white), described in the Birth of a River section of Amazonia: Vital and Fragile, influences the types of organisms that live there.
• Have students think about the following question: What does the rainforest do for us—even if we don’t live there? Remind students that the Amazon rainforest is a carbon sink. The Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in keeping carbon out of our atmosphere, as it naturally sequesters about 28% of the atmospheric carbon emitted by the burning of fossil fuels elsewhere. But, it can only remain a carbon sink as long as it absorbs more carbon dioxide than it releases. Ask students to think about and discuss what would happen if there were not enough trees to absorb carbon. Ask: Where would the carbon go? (If a large number of trees are removed, we will experience more global warming.)

Tips & Modifications

• Tip: The Amazonia: The Human Impact map contains many layers of information. It may be helpful to read through some of the heads and summaries as a class and discuss what information is likely to be contained in that component of the map.
• Modification: This activity works best in small groups. Cooperative learning benefits advanced learners and struggling readers. Assign groups so that advanced students are grouped with struggling readers.
• Modification: To ensure that everyone participates in group work, assign or allow students to choose roles according to their strengths (e.g., recorder, facilitator, speaker, computer driver).

Connections to National Standards, Principles, and Practices

IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts

• Standard 7: Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

National Geography Standards

• Standard 1 : How to use maps and other geographic representations, geospatial technologies, and spatial thinking to understand and communicate information
• Standard 14 : How human actions modify the physical environment
• Standard 15 : How physical systems affect human systems
• Standard 4 : The physical and human characteristics of places

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.2: Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.
• Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies 6-12: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas, RH.6-8.7
• Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects 6-12: Craft and Structure, RST.6-8.4
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.6.1
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.7.3
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.8.2
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.8.3
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.6.3
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas, SL.7.4
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.7.1
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.7.2
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas, SL.6.4
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Comprehension and Collaboration, SL.8.1.
• Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas, SL.8.4
• Writing Standards 6-8: Text Types and Purposes, WHST.6-8.1C
• Writing Standards 6-8: Text Types and Purposes, WHST.6-8.1B.

Next Generation Science Standards

• MS. Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics: MS-LS2-4. Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.

Media Credits

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March 11, 2024

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Related Resources

Amazon Deforestation and Climate Change

Join Gisele Bundchen when she meets with one of Brazil’s top climate scientists to discuss the complexity of the Amazon rainforest and its connection to Earth’s atmosphere.

Anthropology, Geography

High on a tower overlooking the lush Amazon canopy, Gisele Bundchen and Brazilian climate scientist Antonio Nobre talk about the importance of the rain forest and the impact of cutting down its trees.

As Nobre explains, the rainforest is not only home to an incredible diversity of species, it also has a critical cooling effect on the planet because its trees channel heat high into the atmosphere. In addition, forests absorb and store carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere—CO2 that is released back into the atmosphere when trees are cut and burned.

Nobre warns that if deforestation continues at current levels, we are headed for disaster. The Amazon region could become drier and drier, unable to support healthy habitats or croplands.

Find more of this story in the “Fueling the Fire” episode of the National Geographic Channel’s Years of Living Dangerously series.

The Amazon rain forest absorbs one-fourth of the CO2 absorbed by all the land on Earth. The amount absorbed today, however, is 30% less than it was in the 1990s because of deforestation. A major motive for deforestation is cattle ranching. China, the United States, and other countries have created a consumer demand for beef, so clearing land for cattle ranching can be profitable—even if it’s illegal. The demand for pastureland, as well as cropland for food such as soybeans, makes it difficult to protect forest resources.

Many countries are making progress in the effort to stop deforestation. Countries in South America and Southeast Asia, as well as China, have taken steps that have helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the destruction of forests by one-fourth over the past 15 years.

Brazil continues to make impressive strides in reducing its impact on climate change. In the past two decades, its CO2 emissions have dropped more than any other country. Destruction of the rain forest in Brazil has decreased from about 19,943 square kilometers (7,700 square miles) per year in the late 1990s to about 5,180 square kilometers (2,000 square miles) per year now. Moving forward, the major challenge will be fighting illegal deforestation.

Articles & Profiles

Instructional links, media credits.

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Last Updated

March 11, 2024

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Trouble in the Amazon

The rainforest is starting to release its carbon.

Is it heading towards a tipping point?

24 August 2023

By Daniel Grossman

Photographs by Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media for Nature

Video by Patrick Vanier/Hilaea Media for Nature

Climate change, deforestation and other human threats are driving the Amazon towards the limits of survival.

Researchers are racing to chart its future.

The Pulitzer Center in Washington DC supported travel for Daniel Grossman and for photographer Dado Galdieri and videographer Patrick Vanier.

This article is also available as a pdf version .

Luciana Gatti stares grimly out of the window of the small aircraft as it takes off from the city of Santarém, Brazil, in the heart of the eastern Amazon forest. Minutes into the flight, the plane passes over a 30-kilometre stretch of near-total ecological devastation. It’s a patchwork of farmland, filled with emerald-green corn stalks and newly clear-cut plots where the rainforest once stood.

“This is awful. So sad,” says Gatti, a climate scientist at the National Institute for Space Research in São José dos Campos, Brazil.

Gatti is part of a broad group of scientists attempting to forecast the future of the Amazon rainforest. The land ecosystems of the world together absorb about 30% of the carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels; scientists think that most of this takes place in forests, and the Amazon is by far the world’s largest contiguous forest.

Rows of black-pepper plants grow in a field near Santarém that was formerly rainforest.

Since 2010, Gatti has collected air samples over the Amazon in planes such as this one, to monitor how much CO 2 the forest absorbs. In 2021, she reported data from 590 flights that showed that the Amazon forest’s uptake — its carbon sink — is weak over most of its area 1 . In the southeastern Amazon, the forest has become a source of CO 2 .

The finding gained headlines around the world and surprised many scientists, who expected the Amazon to be a much stronger carbon sink. For Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist at the University of São Paulo Institute of Advanced Studies in Brazil, the change was happening much too soon. In 2016, using climate models, he and his colleagues predicted that the combination of unchecked deforestation and global climate change would eventually push the Amazon forest past a “tipping point” , transforming the climate across a vast swathe of the Amazon 2 . Then, the conditions that support a lush, closed-canopy forest would no longer exist. Gatti’s observations seem to show the early signs of what he forecast, Nobre says.

A dealership for the farming equipment company John Deere sits at the edge of the rainforest in Santarém.

“What we were predicting to happen perhaps in two or three decades is already taking place,” says Nobre, who was one of a dozen co-authors of the paper with Gatti.

I’ve travelled to Santarém, where the Tapajós River joins the Amazon River, to join Gatti and other scientists trying to determine whether the forest is heading for an irreversible transformation towards a degraded form of savannah. Another big question is whether the forest can still be saved by slowing climate change, halting Amazon deforestation and restoring its damaged lands, something Nobre suggests is possible.

The large-scale deforestation we saw from the air is the most visible threat to the Amazon. But the forest is suffering in other, less-obvious ways. Erika Berenguer, an ecologist at the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, UK, has found that even intact forest is no longer as healthy as it once was, because of forces such as climate change and the impacts of agriculture that spill beyond farm borders. Earlier this year, a large international team of researchers, including Berenguer, reported that such changes were having effects across 38% of the intact Amazon forest 3 .

Gatti first visited Santarém in the late 1990s, when most of the farming in this part of the Amazon was practised by smallholders for subsistence purposes. Now, she’s astounded by the scale of destruction that has ravaged the jungle. While passing over one huge, newly razed parcel of Amazon forest, Gatti’s voice crackles over the plane’s intercom. “They are killing the forest to transform everything into soy beans.”

Breath of the forest

The plane that collects air samples for Gatti is housed in a cavernous hangar at Santarém airport. On a rainy day in May, she visits the hangar to meet with Washington Salvador, one of her regular pilots. Gatti checks on the rugged plastic suitcases she has had shipped to Santarém and stored in her tiny office at the airport. Inside them, cradled in foam, are 12 sturdy glass flasks the size and shape of one-litre soft-drink bottles.

Luciana Gatti (right) prepares for a flight that will collect air samples over the Amazon forest.

Climate scientist Luciana Gatti stands at the top of a tower above the canopy, watching one of the aeroplanes that collects air samples over the forest.

Luciana Gatti discusses threats to the rainforest.

The problem is that we are advancing a lot in deforestation.

There is a moratorium that is not being obeyed.

When we compare the size of the deforested area from 2010 to 2018 and look at the years 2019 and 2020, which were part of the Bolsonaro government, we see an increase in 70% of planted areas for soy, 60% for corn and 13% for cattle raising.

So a very large increase is happening.

The moratoriums, the agreements are not being respected.

Gatti doesn’t need to accompany Salvador when he collects the samples. That’s fortunate, because she gets air sick flying in small planes. The pilots who work with her fly twice a month to a specific sampling location, one in each quadrant of the Amazon basin. Once they reach an altitude of 4,420 metres over a landmark, the pilot presses a button, opening valves and turning on a compressor that fills the first flask with air taken through a nozzle from outside. Then, they dive in a steep, tight spiral centred around the landmark, collecting 11 more samples, each at a specified altitude. At the final level, the pilot practically buzzes the canopy, sometimes barely 100 metres above the ground.

In her laboratory at the National Institute for Space Research, Gatti measures the amount of CO 2 in the samples. She calculates how much the forest soaks up (or releases) by comparing her measurements with those taken over the Atlantic Ocean, which is upstream of the trade winds that blow over the Amazon.

This patch of the rainforest in the eastern Amazon has been carved up into an array of fields. (Video contains the sound of an aeroplane engine).

Flasks used for sampling air above the rainforest. Luciana Gatti and her colleagues use these samples to determine how carbon dioxide moves into and out of the forest.

Scott Denning, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins who has collaborated with Gatti, says that her research has been an “amazingly logistically difficult project”. “The beauty of Luciana’s work, and also the difficulty of her work, is that she’s done it over and over and over again, every two weeks for ten years.”

Fading forest

Air samples taken over the Amazon rainforest at five sites (orange dots) track the movement of carbon dioxide into and out of the forest between 2010 and 2018. By measuring the total flow of carbon (black) and subtracting that released by fires (grey), researchers calculate the net flux (orange). Negative values indicate carbon sinks — areas that absorb more than they naturally emit. The southeast has become a carbon source, releasing more than it absorbs.

Carbon movement

Flux from fire

Total carbon flux

Forest cover

Regional carbon flux

(grams of carbon

per square metre per day)

Measurement sites

Nature publications remain neutral with regard to contested jurisdictional claims in published maps.

Source: Ref. 1

Regional carbon flux (grams of carbon

Lax enforcement

Some of the forces transforming the Amazon biome are on display at Santarém’s port, where a trio of eight-storey-high silos looms over the city’s fish market. Each silo can hold 18,000 tonnes of maize (corn) or soya beans, waiting to be shipped to other parts of Brazil and then around the globe. As of 2017, more than 13% of the Amazon’s old-growth forest had been cleared, largely for ranching and for growing crops. Almost two-thirds of the biome is in Brazil, which had lost more than 17% of such forest by that year, and its deforestation rates surged in 2019 during the administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

A trio of grain silos stands near the edge of Santarém.

Brazil’s Forest Code is supposed to protect the country’s woods. One key provision requires that in the Amazon, 80% of any plot, a portion known as the Legal Reserve, must be left intact. But many scientists and forest activists argue that lax enforcement makes it too easy to circumvent the law, and that fines for not complying aren’t effective deterrents because they are rarely paid.

Also, people often get title to public or Indigenous land that they illegally occupy and clear, through a process called land grabbing. Philip Fearnside, an ecologist at Brazil’s National Institute for Research in Amazonia in Manaus, says, “Brazil is basically the only country where you can still go into the forest and start clearing and expect to come out with a land title. It’s like the Wild West of North America in the eighteenth century.”

After a one-hour drive south from Santarém, we meet the Indigenous chief — the cacique — of the tiny village of Açaizal in the reservation known as Terra Munduruku do Planalto. He sits on a deck at a rough-hewn wooden table, positioned so he can watch for unwanted outsiders who might drive past.

Josenildo Munduruku, leader of his tribe, in a school with some of his students.

Josenildo Munduruku — as is customary, his surname is the same as his tribe — says that decades ago, non-Indigenous homesteaders began establishing smallholdings on land that he and his ancestors had occupied for generations. He says that they built houses and opened up cattle pastures without ever asking permission or obtaining legal rights. Previous generations of his community didn’t object. “Our parents did not have this type of understanding — they were not concerned about it,” he says.

The land eventually ended up in the hands of commercial growers, who buy up adjacent plots then raze huge swathes of jungle. “They do not care about these trees from which we extract medicine. For them, these trees are meaningless, useless,” says Munduruku. He says that his community has tried unsuccessfully to get help from the government to recover some of the land.

Maize (corn) grows in a field in the Munduruku territory next to intact rainforest.

A farmer harvests a field in a deforested area near Santarém.

The high value of some tropical hardwoods also threatens the forest. Off a highway just west of Açaizal, a timber-mill worker sends a massive log through an industrial saw, which slices off a plank as thick as an encyclopedia. Other workers shape the rough board into standard dimensions.

Ricardo Veronese, the timber mill’s owner, says that his family members, a small lumber dynasty, came to the state of Pará from Mato Grosso state 17 years ago. “We came to Pará because there was plenty of virgin forest left,” he says. The situation in Mato Grosso is different: since the mid-1980s, roughly 40% of its rainforest has been cut down 4 .

Every year, Veronese’s mill saws up about 2,000 giant trees, mostly for high-end flooring and porch decks in the United States and Europe. With obvious pride, he says that he takes only “sustainably harvested” wood. The huge trunks, stacked by the score in a yard, come from state-regulated logging operations that practise selective logging, he says, where only large trees are cut, leaving the remaining trees to grow and fill gaps in the canopy. And he says that his company follows the government’s rules for selective logging, which require firms to take steps to reduce their impact.

But many ecologists say that the selective logging permitted by the Forest Code is often not sustainable. That’s because the trees that are removed are generally slow-growing species with dense wood, whereas the species that grow back have less-dense wood, so they absorb less carbon in the same space. And few companies follow the requirements for selective logging , such as limiting road construction or the number of trees cut. “About 90% of selective logging in the Amazon is estimated as illegal, and therefore doesn’t follow any of these procedures,” says Berenguer.

A sawmill processes logs from the rainforest on the outskirts of Santarém.

Carbon counting

It takes patience and perseverance to monitor the Amazon for long periods. Berenguer and her team have been measuring 6,000 trees in the Tapajós National Forest every three months since 2015. From this, they estimate changes in the amount of biomass in the forest, and how much carbon is stored there 5 .

Censuses such as these, and atmospheric measurements such as Gatti’s, are two common techniques climate scientists use to study the uptake and release of carbon. Each has strengths and drawbacks.

The censuses directly measure the amount of carbon (in the form of wood) in a forest. If paired with measurements of debris on the ground and CO 2 released from soil, they can also take account of decay. But censuses look only at a limited number of sites. Atmospheric measurements can assess the combined impact of changes in forests at regional and even continental scales. But it’s hard to decipher the cause of any changes they show.

In 2010, Berenguer began monitoring more than 20 plots in and around the Tapajós forest. Her goal was to compare the carbon uptake of primary forest with that of jungle degraded by selective logging — legal and otherwise. But in 2015, an unprecedented heat wave and drought hit the eastern Amazon.

Eight of Berenguer’s plots were burnt, killing hundreds of trees that she’d measured at least twice. She recalls the day in 2015 that she visited a recently scorched plot. Her assistant, Gilson Oliveira, had run ahead. “And he just started screaming, ‘Oh tree number 71 is dead. Tree number 114 is burning,’” Her equipment was destroyed. Some favourite trees had died. “I just collapsed crying; just sat down in the ashes.”

Under normal conditions, the Amazon forest is almost fireproof. It’s too wet to burn. But by the time this long dry season ended, fires had scorched one million hectares of primary forest in the eastern Amazon, an area the size of Lebanon, killing an estimated 2.5 billion trees and producing as much CO 2 as Brazil releases from burning fossil fuels in a year 5 . Some of Berenguer’s research was, literally, reduced to ashes. Still, she saw the chance to study a problem that is expected to become increasingly common: the combined effect of multiple issues, such as severe drought, fires and human degradation caused by selective logging and clear-cutting.

A patch of former rainforest in the Munduruku territory has been cleared of trees and will be burnt before it is planted. The impacts and fires spread into the rainforest beyond the edge of the field.

On a tour of where Berenguer’s team works in the Tapajós forest, her field director, Marcos Alves, takes us to a site that burnt in 2015. Not long before the fire, illegal loggers removed the biggest, most economically valuable trees. The forest has grown back with plenty of vegetation, including some fast-growing species that are already as thick as telephone poles. But there are none of the giants that can be found elsewhere in the forest.

Alves and Oliveira take Gatti and me to a site three kilometres up the highway that has never been selectively logged or clear cut, and which escaped the 2015 fires. It’s dimmer here because the high canopy is so thick. And it’s noticeably cooler: not only do the trees block sunlight, but they also transpire vast quantities of water, which chills the air.

Gatti marvels at the size of a Brazil-nut tree ( Bertholletia excelsa ) that forms part of the canopy. “It’s amazing! How much water this tree puts into the air.”

Luciana Gatti stands between the buttresses of a giant samauma tree ( Ceiba pentandra ), which she often visits on trips to the eastern Amazon.

In 2021, Berenguer and a team of co-authors from Brazil and Europe published a study 5 of carbon uptake and tree mortality in her plots during the first three years after the 2015–16 burning. They compared plots that had been selectively logged or had burnt in the years before 2015–16, with ones that had not been logged or burnt. The study found that more trees died in degraded plots.

Although plots that weren’t degraded fared the best in her study, Berenguer says that there is no such thing as “pristine forest” any more. Climate change has warmed the entire Amazon forest by 1 °C in the past 60 years. The eastern Amazon has warmed even more.

Amazon rainfall has not changed appreciably, when averaged over the year. But the dry season, when rain is needed most, is becoming longer, especially in the northeastern Amazon, where dry-season rainfall decreased by 34% between 1979 and 2018 1 . In the southeastern Amazon, the season now lasts about 4 weeks longer than it did 40 years ago, putting stress on trees, especially the big ones. Still, Berenguer says that, so far, the measurable effects of climate change on the forest are relatively subtle compared with those of direct human impacts such as logging.

Fading forests

David Lapola, an Earth-system modeller at Brazil’s University of Campinas, says that deforestation alone can’t explain why the Amazon carbon sink has weakened — and has reversed in the southeast. He and more than 30 colleagues, including Gatti and Berenguer, published an analysis this year noting that carbon emissions resulting from degradation equal — or exceed — those from clear-cutting deforestation 3 .

Widespread threats

The area of intact Amazon forest that has been degraded by different forces exceeds the area that has been deforested by clear-cutting. Three main drivers of degradation are fires, selective timber extraction and edge effects that harm the forest near areas that have been cleared or burnt. Severe droughts can also cause degradation.

5.5% of total remaining Amazon forest degraded

Fire, edge effects

and timber extraction

Deforestation

Forest degradation

2001–18 (thousand km 2 )

Number of severe

Area affected by selective timber

Extent of edge effects

(km 2 , log scale)

extraction (km 2 , log scale)

droughts 2001–18

Source: Ref. 3

Area affected by

selective timber

5.5% of total

remaining Amazon forest degraded

Number of severe droughts 2001–18

Area burnt (km 2 , log scale)

Extent of edge effects (km 2 , log scale)

What’s more, even intact forest with no obvious local human impacts is accumulating less carbon than it used to, as seen in some tree-census studies. A 2015 analysis 6 of 321 plots of Amazon primary forest with no overt human impacts reported “a long-term decreasing trend of carbon accumulation”. A similar study 7 published in 2020 reported the same things in the Congo Basin forest — the world’s second-largest tropical jungle.

That’s a change from previous decades, when censuses indicated that such primary forest in the Amazon was storing more carbon. There is no consensus explanation for these slowdowns, or why primary forest was accumulating carbon. But many researchers suspect that the carbon gains in previous decades stem from the influence of extra CO 2 in the atmosphere, which can stimulate the growth of plants. In some studies that expose large forest plots to elevated CO 2 , known as free-air carbon enrichment (FACE) experiments, researchers have measured gains in biomass. But this effect lasted only a few years in one experiment 8 , and other studies have not yet determined whether the gains are temporary.

All of the forest FACE experiments have so far been conducted in temperate regions, however. And many scientists suspect that tropical forests — and the Amazon, in particular — might follow different rules. The first tropical-forest FACE experiment is finally under construction, 50 kilometres north of Manaus. Nobre says that it could help to predict whether continued increases in CO 2 will benefit the Amazon.

For several decades, Nobre and his students have used computer models to forecast how climate change and deforestation will affect the Amazon. The research grew, in part, from work in the 1970s showing that the Amazon forest itself helps to create the conditions that nourish it 9 . Moisture blowing in from the Atlantic falls as rain in the eastern Amazon and is then transpired and blown farther west. It recycles several times before reaching the Andes. A smaller or seriously degraded forest would recycle less water, and eventually might not be able to support the lush, humid forest.

In their 2016 study 2 , Nobre and several colleagues estimated the Amazon would reach a tipping point if the planet warms by more than 2.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures and if 20–25% of the Amazon is deforested. The planet is on track to reach 2.5 °C of warming by 2100, according to a report released by the United Nations last October .

Nobre now wonders whether his earlier study was too conservative. “What Luciana Gatti’s paper shows is that this whole area in the southern Amazon is becoming a carbon source.” He is convinced that, although the Amazon is not at the tipping point yet, it might be soon.

Susan Trumbore, director of the Max Planck Institute of Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, is not a fan of using the term tipping point, a phrase with no precise definition, to discuss the Amazon. But she says that the forest’s future is in question. “We all think of a tipping point as it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen fast. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a gradual alteration of the ecosystem that we know is coming with climate change,” she says. Regardless of whether the change will be fast or slow, Trumbore agrees with the majority of scientists who study the Amazon that it is facing serious challenges that might have global ramifications.

Luciana Gatti climbs a tower that rises above the canopy in the rainforest.

Some of those challenges are directly linked to politics in the region. On 23 August, Gatti and her colleagues reported that assaults on the Amazon — including deforestation, burning and degradation — had increased dramatically in 2019 and 2020 as a result of declines in law enforcement. And that doubled the carbon emissions from the region 10 .

The fate of the Amazon is on Gatti’s mind as she climbs a lattice tower in the Tapajós forest — one of the landmarks her pilots fly over as they collect air samples. The metal structure rattles and creaks as she ascends. On the deck, 15 storeys above the ground, she gazes at the forest spreading in all directions out to the horizon. It looks unblemished. But she says that it is suffering.

“We are killing this ecosystem directly and indirectly,” she says, choking up. She wipes a tear from her eye. “This is what scares me terribly and why it’s affecting me so much when I come here. I’m observing the forest dying.”

Trees in the rainforest pump tremendous amounts of water vapour into the atmosphere through the process of evapotranspiration. Cleared land releases much less moisture, drying out nearby areas of the forest.

Daniel Grossman is a freelance reporter in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Mariana Lenharo contributed translations.

• Author: Daniel Grossman
• Photographer: Dado Galdieri
• Videographer: Patrick Vanier
• Media editor: Amelia Hennighausen
• Subeditor: Anne Haggart
• Art editor: Chris Ryan
• Editor: Richard Monastersky
• Gatti, L. V. et al. Nature 595 , 388–393 (2021).
• Nobre, C. A. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113 , 10759–10768 (2016).
• Lapola, D. M. et al. Science 379 , eabp8622 (2023).
• Griffiths, P., Jakimow, B. & Hostert, P. Remote Sens. Environ. 216 , 497–513 (2018).
• Berenguer, E. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118 , e2019377118 (2021).
• Brienen, R. J. W. et al. Nature 519 , 344–348 (2015).
• Hubau, W. et al. Nature 579 , 80–87 (2020).
• Norby R. J., Warren, J. M., Iversen, C. M., Medlyn, B. E. & McMurtrie, R. E. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107 , 19368–19373 (2010).
• Salati, E., Dall’Olio, A., Matsui, E. & Gat, J. R. Water Resour. Res. 15 , 1250–1258 (1979).
• Gatti, L. V. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06390-0 (2023).

Correction: A photo caption in an earlier version of this feature erroneously described a farmer as preparing a field near Santarém for planting. In fact, the field was being harvested.

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In the heart of the Amazon, this pristine wilderness shows nature’s resilience

Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park, along the banks of the Napo River, shows how biodiversity can thrive when humans don’t interfere.

Amid the din of tragic tales of environmental degradation in the Amazon, there are other, quieter but no less compelling stories testifying to the sheer power of nature to thrive when left untouched. Such is the case of the Napo River, which flows along the north of Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park .  

“It’s a place where all your senses explode. You’re not just seeing life all over, you’re hearing calls of birds, frogs, the wind; smelling the pollen of plants, the soil, the rain. It’s overwhelming,” says biologist, conservationist and environmental photographer Lucas Bustamante . “For anyone in love with nature, it’s like being a kid in a toy store.”  

Established in 1979   in northwestern Amazonia, Yasuní National Park is the largest conservation area in Ecuador. It protects some 1,1 million hectares of Amazon rainforest, an area roughly the size of Croatia. It’s one of the most biodiverse forests on the planet—and the Napo River is the artery pumping life into its heart.  

The river begins in the high slopes of the Andes to the east and marks the park’s northern frontier. It eventually joins the Amazon River to the west, after crossing into Peru.  

Bustamante is from Ecuador, and he organizes expeditions for photographers into Añangu, a village by the Napo River managed by local Kichwa indigenous families. Twenty years ago, the group decided to pursue ecotourism instead of logging and hunting as their main source of income. The project has thrived, and so has nature.  

“It took a few years for the animals to start coming back, and for the forest to start recovering,” Bustamante says. “Right now, it’s like a small paradise, an island of biodiversity.”  

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‘aquatic spiderweb’.

This pristine space was the perfect place for photographer Thomas Peschak , who wanted to capture the deep connections between the Amazon’s animals and its waterways. A National Geographic Explorer, Peschak is working on a long-term project to document the rainforest from the water—its “aquatic spiderweb” of giant rivers with hundreds of tributaries and thousands of streams.  

He and Bustamante spent weeks on a canoe paddling on the creeks around the Napo River, looking for endemic species like the giant river otter. These endangered mammals are among the Amazon’s top five predators, wolfing down seven pounds of fish in one day. Their presence is a strong indicator of a healthy aquatic ecosystem .  

“Across the Amazon we are seeing things deteriorate, but Napo really bucks the trend. Because there’s no poaching, illegal logging or mining a lot of the wildlife around the river is incredibly relaxed around people,” says Peschak.  

That ease, in turn, gives Peschak a unique opportunity to capture and showcase many animals’ behavior in the wild, like a butterfly drinking the tears from a river turtle’s eyes, a giant otter snatching up a fish, and red howler monkeys feeding on leaves above a stream.  

Not everything is so simple, however. In the days before Peschak’s expedition, heavy rain swelled the Andean headwaters. Water levels in the Napo River rose dramatically, making its streams overflow and bleed into the forest.  

The flood, while not unusual for the river and its ecosystem, made the explorers’ search for otters much harder. The flooded streams meant that the animals could swim far inside the flooded forest, away from the main riverways. So Peschak and Bustamante spent seven days paddling with no otters in sight—until, on the final day, they saw a group of them feasting on fish.  

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“In this job, you have to be patient beyond stupidity,” says Peschak. “When every bone and brain cell in your body tells you to give up, that's when you have to keep going. Patience and persistence are rewarded by nature.”  

Highway of seeds

The remarkable biodiversity around the Napo River reflects its descent from the foothills of the Andes to the Amazon Basin . These ecosystems blend along its banks in a unique way, and this means that the Yasuní National Park has a vast array of species within its bounds.  

The Napo is also loaded with nutrients from the Andes, including rich ash from volcanic eruptions. It’s a whitewater river, which designates waterways carrying large amounts of sediments, giving them a muddy color. It’s also an efficient disperser of seeds. “The Napo River is like a highway in which millions of seeds travel from the Andes and across the region, helping species to propagate,” says biologist Gonzalo Rivas-Torres.  

This flow of seeds is also a crucial food source for the great variety of fish found in the Napo’s waters. And this has ripple effects on the rest of the forest, far beyond the river’s bends.

“Fish depend on the amount of nutrients, fruits and seeds in the water. If the forests by the riversides aren’t in good shape, fish populations will be low, and otters won’t have enough food,” he explains. “Everything is connected.”

Rivas-Torres is the director of the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, a biological field station kept by Universidad San Francisco de Quito in collaboration with Boston University for research, education and conservation.  

Their base is on the banks of the Tiputini River, a tributary of the Napo. From this perch, Rivas-Torres says he’s always spellbound to see wildlife so close and all around. His students have wept after seeing a jaguar in the wild for the first time, for example, or when releasing a yellow-spotted turtle back into the river.

“They say they didn’t expect to see this, or they didn’t know Ecuador was also this.” Rivas-Torres says. “It’s a life changing experience.”

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Home — Essay Samples — Business — Amazon — What can you do in the Amazon rainforest

What Can You Do in The Amazon Rainforest

• Categories: Amazon Forest

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Published: Mar 14, 2019

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River cruises, canopy tours, hiking at parks and wildlife reserves, eco-lodge accommodations, meet the local communities to witness life in the jungle, respect giant trees and remarkable plant life.

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January 27, 2023

One Third of the Amazon Has Been Degraded by Human Activities

A pair of studies raise concerns that the Amazon rain forest may be approaching a point of no return

By Chelsea Harvey & E&E News

Aerial view of a log storage yard in an area of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.

Tarcisio Schnaider/Getty Images

Study after study has sounded the alarm on the deteriorating Amazon rainforest. Plagued by deforestation, drought, fires and other human disturbances, the iconic ecosystem is teetering on a dangerous precipice, scientists warn.

New research is once again driving the point home. A pair of studies published this week in the journal  Science  conclude that the mighty Amazon is swiftly transforming—and it may be at risk of collapsing into a new kind of ecosystem altogether.

Human disturbances have degraded more than a third of the Amazon rainforest, the  first study  finds. Fires; selective logging; habitat fragmentation; and drought, which is worsened by climate change, are all chipping away at one of the world’s most iconic ecosystems.

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That’s to say nothing of the forest that’s been clearcut in recent decades.

The first study focuses only on degradation, activities that damage the forest but don’t remove all the trees from the landscape. It doesn’t include deforestation, which clears a forest area. That’s another problem entirely, with recent estimates suggesting that as much as 17 percent of the Amazon has already been cleared.

Degradation tends to get less attention than deforestation, the researchers note. But it’s still a serious threat. Even though trees remain standing, degraded forests are often less resilient to future disturbances. This puts them at greater risk of dying and transforming into different kinds of ecosystems, like grasslands. Degraded forests also tend to store less carbon.

The researchers used satellite data to estimate the extent of forest area affected by four major disturbances: droughts; fires; timber extraction, when trees are selectively logged from inside the forest without clearing the entire landscape; and “edge effects,” which is when the edges of a forest become more vulnerable to disturbances. Edge effects are common in forests that have been broken up into smaller and smaller pieces over time, with more edges overlapping roads, agricultural lands and other human disruptions.

They found that 38 percent of the remaining Amazonian forests are suffering from some form of degradation.

Often, multiple different disturbances act on the same tract, the study finds. About 5.5 percent of the Amazon is suffering from the combined effects of timber extraction, fire and edge effects at once.

The  second study  underscores the powerful impact of human activity in the Amazon. It finds that human disturbances are altering the ecosystem hundreds to thousands of times faster than natural processes change the landscape.

The study pulls much of its data from a recent assessment report compiled by the Science Panel for the Amazon, an initiative convened by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Solutions Network. It notes that about 17 percent of the original Amazon has already been deforested. About 14 percent has been converted into agricultural land.

“As we approach an irreversible tipping point for Amazonia, the global community must act now,” the authors of the second study wrote. “To fail the Amazon is to fail the biosphere, and we fail to act at our own peril.”

Scientists have warned repeatedly that the collapse of the Amazon rainforest ecosystem would be a global catastrophe. The Amazon is among the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, estimated to contain at least 10 percent of all the world’s plant and vertebrate animal species in one place.

It also contains vast stores of carbon, locked up in its trees and soil. Research estimates that the entire Amazon ecosystem may contain as much as 180 billion tons of carbon — that's about a quarter of all the carbon that's entered the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began. As the Amazon degrades, it releases more carbon into the atmosphere, which hastens the progression of global climate change.

Research  says that parts of the Amazon are already flipping from carbon sinks to carbon sources, meaning they emit more carbon into the atmosphere than they absorb.

As the ecosystem continues to degrade, scientists say that it may eventually reach a tipping point — a kind of threshold beyond which the Amazon can no longer recover from its disturbances. After this tipping point, the Amazon may transform from a lush rainforest into a grassy savanna — a drier and much less biodiverse kind of ecosystem.

It’s been difficult for scientists to find the precise location of this tipping point. But another  recent study  warned that it could be approaching faster than expected. It finds that the Amazon has been steadily losing its resilience — its ability to recover from disturbances — for at least 20 years ( Climatewire , March 8, 2022).

Reprinted from  E&E News  with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2023. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.