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Brazilian Rainforests

The intent in the following pages is to explore briefly the impact of changes in the Amazonian ecosystem, with particular emphasis on the way in which environmental problems affect the people of the region.

Most people are familiar with the basic details of the situation in the Amazonian rainforests. They are aware that this is perhaps the lushest environment for life on earth, with a plethora of species that scientists indicate have not even yet been fully identified. Marguerite Holloway noted that while rainforests themselves cover only 7 percent of the earth's surface, they include approximately 50 percent of the plants and animals found on the earth. Brazil itself is considered to have the greatest species diversity of all the countries in the world (1993). Yet, this is also a region that is being devastated radically, and rapidly, by slashandburn agriculture, by ongoing industrial development in the region, by attempted exploitation of the region for mineral wealth, by turning rainforest into grazing land, and for various other activities that are fundamentally incompatible with simply allowing the rainforest to be the rich source of life that it is. The current destruction of species resulting from rainforest deforestation may represent up to 27,000 extinctions per year.

The history of the environmental degradation of the region is a fairly short one. In 1978, Brazil signed the Treaty on Amazonian Cooperation with several other countries, including Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. This Treaty provided for both the environmental protection of the area and the efficient use of its natural resources (Mayer, 1992).

However, the emphasis since that time has been on the use of the natural resources, rather than their preservation. Although Brazil has recently made some strides in reducing deforestation of the rainforest, and appointed an environmentalist as Secretary of the Environm...

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Brazilian Rainforests. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:34, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691799.html