Amazon Rainforest

This page is Linked to the Enviromental Issues topic

Although there won't be any questions directly linked to this topic, it can be useful to use as an example for many questions.

The amazon rainforest is a very useful piece of land. It's the home to many tribes, It's brilliant for science, provides thousands of trees for paper and it's land is very fertile - perfect for most crops.

However, there are a number of stake holders for this rainforest, and none of them seem to agree with each other...

Stakeholders
A Stake holder is someone who has to rights to use something, in this case the amazon rainforest. The stakeholders of the Amazon are...

Tribes

Live in peace with the forest and aren't damaging it in any way. However they need the forest to live and it's being cut down by loggers.

Loggers

There is very large profit to be made from cutting down trees. Whether it's building roads, making space for farms or selling the wood for paper etc. However the Tribes and Scientists are in the way.

Miner

Like the loggers, they want to extract resources from the rainforest, but the tribes and scientists are in the way.

Brazillian Government

Understand that it's important to keep the rainforest, but the with economy cutting down the trees is bringing, they are all for it.

Scientists

Want to observe the forest for information on trees and life etc. However they can't do this if it's all being cut down.

Little facts that'll look good on the exam!

 * In around 4 minutes, about 466 football fields worth of rainforest will be cut down.
 * If there is a cure for cancer or aids, it is most likely to be in the Amazon Rainforest, and we're destroying it.
 * During the past 40 years, close to 20 percent of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down—more than in all the previous 450 years since European colonization began.
 * Our biscuits are made from palm oil, which come from trees that orangutans live on. So, next time you eat a digestive, just think to yourself "I'm an orangutan murderer."


 * Rainforests are 2% of the Earth, and hold 50% of the world's animal & plant species.


 * In a square km of rainforest, there are 1,500 species of plants, 400 species of birds, 150 species of butterfly, 60 types of amphibians, countless numbers of fish & insects, 20 types of mammal, 100 types of reptile. (I wouldn't bother trying to remember all that, although 1 or 2 might be good!)


 * 56,000 square miles of rainforest is lost each year.


 * 100 species lost a day.