Office of the President of Brasil Amazon Rainforest Fact File
Jan 17, 2016
Office of the President of Brasil
Amazon
Rainforest
Fact File
Threats to
the Amazon
Rainforest
• By the end of this class…a part of the Amazon the size of 600 football fields will be lost to deforestation.
• How does that happen?
Deforestation• Deforestation
has cost Brazil about 20% of it’s rainforest.
• Deforestation occurs to get the Amazon’s timber (wood), land for farming, land for ranching, the resources underground, and land to live on.
Commercial FarmingBefore someone can farm on
rainforest land they must clear the land with “slash-and-burn”:1)Cut all the trees down2)Burn the underbrush and tree stumps3)Burned ground creates fertile soil that is good for agriculture.
Brazil is the second LARGEST producer of soybeans in the world.** Soy beans are used to make products like your lunch hamburgers! **
This land cleared for agriculture is not very fertile and lasts only 2-3 years and farmers have to move to other land and “slash-and-burn.”
Ranching• Brazil produces
over 10 million tons of beef! (1 ton = 2,000 pounds)
•Ranchers “clear-cut” the forest so their cattle have land to graze on grass.
•For every quarter-pound hamburger eaten in the U.S. 55 square feet of the rainforest was cleared.
Human Settlement• Commercial farming and
timber companies built roads into the rainforest to get to their land.
• Soon after people followed in search of their own land to start homes and small farms. Many grow into cities.
• With increased urbanization comes air and water pollution and, of course, more deforestation.
13.5 million Brazilians live in the Amazon rainforest, 70% in urban areas.
MiningThe Amazon rainforest has a hidden wealth of natural mineral resources underneath it.
Recently mining has taken off in search of:
- iron ore- gold- oil- diamonds
What’s It All Worth?• Economic Boost
– Beef Ranching = $ 4 billion– Soy Agriculture = $ 9 billion– Timber = $ 3.22 billion–Mining (gold, iron) = $ 44.8 billion
$ 61.02 billion AND GROWING
What’s Gone?• Since 1991 the
size of the area deforested in the Amazon equals nearly the size of Texas.
What’s At Risk?• Lost of indigenous peoples’ traditional
way of life• Global warming through less trees• Loss of unique species of plants,
animals, insects, reptiles, etc• Air and water pollution through the
region• Destruction of an irreplaceable place
on this planet