Question Your World: How Important Is the Amazon Rainforest?
Natural disasters can be incredibly dangerous to nearby populations, but some could even impact the entire planet. Some of Earth’s natural resources are so massive that they not only serve vital functions in the immediate area but have global impacts as well, like the Amazon rainforest in South America. How important is the Amazon rainforest?
In the past few weeks, the Amazon has been experiencing some pretty intense bouts of fire. While fire is a natural part of any forest system, the extent of this year’s wildfires has scientists and conservationists concerned. Over 74,000 Amazon fires have been observed from space this year already, with more expected before the year ends.
As governments in these regions continue to deregulate environmental services, which ultimately encourages deforestation, these areas continue to become more and more fire-friendly. Farmers use fire to clear the land, and the cut wood then provides more fuel for the fires to spread. One estimate says 80% of the Amazon's deforestation is due to facilitating more cattle ranches to feed our growing planet’s beef eaters.
Image credit: Getty Images
How much deforestation is happening in the Amazon? In 2018, it’s estimated that about three football fields worth of trees were cut down every single minute. While deforestation used to be even worse, this is still cause for concern.
This recent spreading of fires has gotten global attention and rightly so, since the Amazon rainforest is of global importance. For starters, the Amazon is home to millions of species - about 10% of the world's biodiversity. As the world's largest tropical rainforest, it also traps a lot of carbon from our atmosphere, and many other globally important ecosystem functions.
These fires will continue until they are naturally extinguished or controlled by human intervention. Regardless, this area will take centuries to recover. Once the fires are out, scientists can begin to see the potential impacts on the millions of species of plants and animals that live there, many of which are threatened or endangered.
Environmentalists around the world agree that extreme events like this further reinforce the value of long-term planning and protection of global environmental resources. While these fires are thousands of miles away, they serve as a great reminder of why we must protect the Earth as one giant system. After all, it’s all connected.
