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