The Vanishing Amazon Forest, and Where it has Gone
The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest stretching over 1.2 billion acres of land. The Amazon is also known as the Amazonia, the Amazon Basin or to some, the Great Frontier. The rain forest crosses over nine boarding countries including Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Because Brazil is the largest country in South America, 60% of the Amazon Basin sits there. This large forest actually covers 40% of all of South America itself. The Amazon is made up of a mosaic of ecosystems and vegetation types including rainforests, seasonal forests, and deciduous forests, it is also home to the second longest river in the world, the Amazon River. The river is the lifeline of the forest as it stretches over 4,000 miles. Twenty eight billion gallons of water flow into the Atlantic every minute, diluting the salinity of the ocean for more than 100 miles offshore. Amazonia receives about 9 feet of rain every year, feeding vegetation and animals and different types of species. Over 500 mammals, 175 lizards and over 300 other reptiles species, and one third of the world's birds live in Amazonia. It is estimated that about 30 million insect types can be found here. This may explain why over millions of years of evolution so many highly adapted species have evolved in the canopy of Amazon. Below the canopy of the rain forest only 2-5% of sunlight hits the ground. Scientists are now discovering that many of the plants are sources for new drugs for AIDS, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and Alzheimer's. With the Amazon being so vast, there are a lot of economic possibilities available. That is why today the Amazon rain forest has slowly been depleting in size. Today more than 20% of the rain forest has been destroyed and will never be recovered. I’ am going to examine how the rubber boom, road ways, and soy production has slowly depleted the forest, and the changes that need...