The Amazon rain forest ecosystem

Global warming, natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, and our quality of resources like air and water are all controversial topics today. Many people say that the benefits of industry and exploration outweigh the environmental costs, like fewer rain forests or the extinction of species. Others say that these environmental resources ought to be conserved, even if it means scaling back industrial operations like mining, logging, or production. And although the many individuals who illegally destroy parts of protected regions are fined or punished otherwise, there are hundreds, at least, who are never caught (Mirabella 1997).

The Amazon rain forest is one of these areas which is so debated; there are definite, tangible profits to be made through its deforestation and the cultivation of industrial pursuits; however, there are also marked costs in destroying or harming this natural resource. This paper will briefly examine a few of the harmful ways that Amazon deforestation affects our entire globe and our environment.

The immediate effect of deforestation in the Amazon, or in any rain forest, is that the area is no longer a lush, tropical habitat for many plant and animal species. In many cases, these species have nowhere else to go, or cannot survive in another climate or region and thus become endangered or extinct. There are twelve species of birds that are native and exclusive to the Amazon, and by destroying the only region in which they live, industry and deforestation are destroying these species, even if the extinction is "inadvertent" (Blake 1999).

The loss of these birds is only one of the many ways that specific species are being dislocated from their native habitats and, in turn, being forced into endangerment or extinction by the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon region. This extinction not only affects the entire world with regard to the number of animal and plant species that we may observe for pleasure, but also is destroying potential sources of research -- both medical and otherwise -- that might exist only in these extinct or endangered species.

Another, more direct way that the deforestation in the Amazon effects the greater world is through climate changes produced by the shifting amount of carbon dioxide that is no longer processed by the trees which are destroyed in deforestation. Studies have demonstrated that when the rain forests are diminished in size, precipitation also diminishes over them (Lawrence 2002). This decreased rainfall can translate into worldwide diminished rainfall, since such a significant portion of the world's precipitation is begun in a climate such as the Amazonian rain forest and then travels to other locales worldwide. With less precipitation originating from Brazil, there is less precipitation to be spread around locations that depend on this rainfall for their own precipitation needs; for example, there is no rainfall produced in the deserts of the Western U.S., but these areas do occasionally receive rainfall. That moisture is produced somewhere else and is then carried along wind or current routes to the drier areas; with a decrease in this precipitation to be transported to drier areas, some areas of the United States might be left with significantly less precipitation that they are accustomed to, and therefore the Amazonian deforestation will directly affect living conditions in areas other than those geographically nearby.

A third effect of deforestation in the Amazon is the increase in global warming. The intake of carbon dioxide by the massive amounts of trees in the Amazon rain forest constitutes a significant portion of the entire globe's carbon dioxide processing. These trees process the carbon dioxide to produce oxygen; diminishing the numbers of trees performing this task increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and lessens the amount of oxygen in the environment. This disruption of the carbon cycle results in more heat being trapped in the earth's atmosphere by the increased amount of carbon dioxide, which results in overall global warming -- also known as the greenhouse effect. This phenomenon has been blamed for changes in the world's climate such as an increase in ocean temperatures worldwide, an overall increase in air temperatures worldwide, and the accelerated melting of the polar ice caps, which can be attributed to higher air and oceanic temperatures (Wikipedia).