Amazon destruction

1. How fast is it being destroyed?

1.1. the rain forest is being chopped down 12million

1.2. We chop the rainforests down at our peril, and are getting perilously close to the time when the for- ests will start falling apart, even if we don’t bulldoze down one more tree.

2. How does the rainforest affect the weather?

2.1. Rainforest destruction causes 20% of all greenhouse emissions, that’s more than all the fossil-fuel vehicles on the planet

2.1.1. When the trees are standing they store carbon. they are a living carbon reservoir, but when they are chopped down and burnt that carbon goes into the air

2.2. stronger el Nino effect

2.3. water vapor turns to rain that travels to other countries

3. What can be done?

3.1. Deforestation was left out of the kyoto protocol

3.2. the world has to think about forests as being more valuable as carbon sinks than they are to a few greedy people / companies who are after easy profits.unless the world starts to think of them being more valuable to mankind standing they will be lost .

3.2.1. countries need to be able to make an income for leaving the rainforest.

4. ecology

4.1. if the trees are gone, the soil will erode

4.2. it wont rain there

4.3. the soil will dry out/turn to desert

4.4. the food web gets disrupted

4.5. the trees that are left die back because they don't get enough rain

4.6. more susceptible to fire

4.7. river systems are drying up eg Macizo. .

5. Integrated forests, water, hemispheres The beauty of it is the trees are able to draw down deep for their water, which they not only direct up- wards through the trunk and branches to pass water vapour out of the stomatal pores in the leaves, they also direct water out sideways through a lateral root system, dampening the soil around and feeding the sub-storey vegetation. The net result is the rate and extent of the water flow out through the leaves in- creases by a quarter or more consequently bringing about the formation of storm clouds which, because of their upward convection, suck in humid air from the other hemisphere undergoing winter. This is a vital process, bringing the rains the forest needs for its survival. It’s a process that transfers solar energy, 6 million atomic bombs’ worth every day, out of the Amazon Basin to the higher latitudes. Without the forest to export and distribute the Sun’s energy the entire region would heat by 10°C or more. What a beautiful way to make life possible over such a vast continent and how brutish our ongoing onslaught against the forests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Rainforest

6. Which animals are most threatened?

6.1. Contains 2/3 rds of all the plants and animals on the planet

7. How much is gone already?

8. Who is to blame?

8.1. Soya plantation owners

8.2. More than 8% of the Brazilian Amazon is illegally owned

8.3. Beef drives 80% of Amazon deforestation

8.4. chinese, Norwegian, companies are putting roads through so they can mine

9. How does it affect the indigenous people

9.1. 25% is inhabited by indigenous peoples

9.2. 90 tribes went extinct in Brazil that they know of since 1900

10. biological diversity

10.1. New node

10.2. plants can be sources of new medicines