How much money does the amazon rainforest make

The plight of the Amazon has received widespread attention over the past week or so as reports surfaced that Brazil—which hosts around 60 percent of the world’s largest tropical forest—has experienced a significant spike in the number of wildfires this year. Amid this mucch, many media outlets, charities, celebrities and even world leaders repeated the claim that the How much money does the amazon rainforest make produces 20 percent of the world’s oxygen supply. The implication here is that the destruction of kuch rain forest poses a threat to this oxygen supply. But is this true? Experts say the real anazon is actually smaller, and furthermore, this way of thinking is misleading given the true nature of the Amazon’s effect on global oxygen levels. In fact, the world’s oxygen levels are actually quite mak and are not dependent on mudh forests, which use up as much of the gas as they produce in the long run, according to Philip Fearnside, a professor at Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research. Trees use up most of the oxygen that they produce though photosynthesis. In photosynthesis, plants capture and store solar energy, using it to convert carbon dioxide in the air into sugar molecules which they use for food, producing oxygen as a byproduct. On a global scale, the main location for this is at the bottom of the ocean, where some of the organisms sink to the bottom when they die and are buried in the sediments. Essentially, this means that the net effect of the Amazon rain forest on the amount of oxygen in the global atmosphere is «virtually nothing,» since the photosynthesis to produce maek plant matter is almost balanced by microbes decomposing dead plant material, according to Saleska. Saleska notes that sincethe level of oxygen in the atmosphere has dropped by 0. If Amazon deforestation were half of all deforestation—it’s probably not quite—then just 5 percent of the overall 0.

1. Educate yourself and others

It is also the world’s largest rainforest , spanning more than 2 million square miles in northern South America, mainly in Brazil but also in parts of Peru, Colombia and six other nations. But though it has existed for 50 million years, the Amazon rainforest is now under threat from human activities, including devastating fires set to clear acreage for ranching and agriculture as well as the mining of oil and gas, copper, iron and gold. In recent months, the Amazon region has been hit by thousands of fires that collectively have cleared more than 7, square miles of rainforest in Brazil. Scientists say the recent spate of fires reverses a long trend toward fewer fires and less deforestation. Fires break out every year in the Amazon rainforest, often accidentally during the dry months of September and October. But satellite photographs show that many fires in the Brazilian portion of the rainforest were set deliberately to clear land. That could cripple regional economies and cause the loss of many indigenous species. The rainforest brings rainfall across South America , and much of the continent would become hotter and drier if large portions of it were to be destroyed. The shift to a more arid climate would devastate the vast agricultural areas farther south; parts of South America would become effectively unlivable. The decline of the Amazon rainforest could also affect the global climate , although scientists are unsure exactly how. At the least, rainfall patterns across North America, Europe and Africa would change.

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Latest Issue. Past Issues. The scale of the crisis is unfathomable: the skies of Sao Paulo darkened with smoke from the Amazon aflame thousands of miles away. A terrifying climate double whammy is upon us: As the forest burns, the trees release stored carbon in the form of greenhouse-gas-inducing carbon dioxide; and as these forests vanish, we lose the carbon-storing potential of the trees. In response to the global fury at these fires, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has played up his nationalist rhetoric: What right does the rest of the world have to tell us what to do with our forests?

Why has there been so many wildfires in the Amazon recently?

Fires are a regular occurrence in the Amazon during the dry season, b ut n early 73, fires were recorded between January and August, compared with 39, in all of , according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research INPE. Bolsonaro campaigned on a promise to open up the Amazon to farming, logging and mining, and to strip native Amazonian tribes of their land. And as president, he is defunding the bodies responsible for environmental enforcement. Bolsonaro and his supporters argue that their economic growth is being held back because they cannot exploit the Amazon. But how do you put a price on the Amazon rainforest? What is the rainforest — which produces six percent of the world’s oxygen and is home to a fifth of the world’s freshwater supply — worth? The vast majority of the land is not currently under any economically viable, productive use. In fact, the majority of it is in very extensive, low productivity cattle pasture often making a loss economically; and also a huge area of it has been abandoned. According to Gardner, Brazil has the opportunity «to make much better use of the land that has already been cleared Environmental groups argue Brazil’s beef, soybeans and other exports are linked to the Amazon fires. But for individual consumers, experts say, it is difficult to have confidence in making a purchase free from any exploitation of the resources within the Amazon rainforest. And we are often very ignorant, blissfully ignorant, about where it’s come from. Most soy in the world is used to feed animals. And you are not thinking when you are eating a chicken burger for example, that you are also eating soy that may come from the Brazilian Amazon,» Gardner says. Brazil’s handling of the situation has strained its relationship with the EU.

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2. Reduce, reuse, recycle

Deforestation in Brazil destroyed nearly 8, square miles of the Amazon rainforest in Inonly 1 percent of the Brazilian Amazon had been deforested. By now, between 15 and 25 percent has been lost, with an estimated 1 percent disappearing every year. The area of forest overrun in three decades equals the size of France. Without an internationally coordinated management of forests and wildlife, along with a guarantee of a livable wage to all people, no country can maintain threatened ecosystems. Deforestation poses many unknown risks to the environment, and reduces biodiversity, immeasurably limiting scientific discovery. Humanity has removed about 78 percent of primary forest coverage.