Bringing Back Our Tropical Forests

Bringing Back Our Tropical Forests — page 1 — Some animals that live in the Amazon such as poison dart frogs are brightly colored

Bringing Back Our Tropical Forests — page 2 — Chapter ONE BRAZIL A RAIN FOREST SUCCESS STORY Entering the Amazon rain forest is like entering another world Trees soar high above Wide roots called buttresses spread out at a tree's base to support its straight trunk The first branches are far above the tallest human's head The forest canopy blocks much of the sunlight so it is dim and cool Streams run through and life is everywhere Ferns banana trees and bromeliads abound as do flowers and fruits Vines hang down toward the forest floor Brightly colored birds flit

Bringing Back Our Tropical Forests — page 3 — and monkeys swing through the trees calling and chattering Colorful frogs lizards and insects appear and quickly disappear again A lucky person might even spy a giant anaconda wrapped around a high branch or a solitary jaguar stalking its prey This is the undisturbed Amazon Brazil today is not so untouched Swidden agriculture or shifting cultivation has been an agricultural practice in tropical areas for generations Farmers clear small areas of land for short periods and then leave the land to return to forest for a longer period These carefully nurtured regions in which crops and forest are rotated provide a livelihood for tropical farmers while maintaining high forest biodiversity However beginning in approximately the 1960s Brazil began using a type of unsustainable swidden agriculture usually referred to as slash and burn agriculture This term can imply that all swidden agriculture is unsustainable however so some avoid using it Workers clear cut or burn the forests to make room for cattle pastures and soybean fields The intensity with which this practice is used has been destroying the rain forest From 1979 to 2005 more than 200 000 square miles 500 000 sq km of Brazilian The changes in the Brazilian Amazon in rain forest were destroyed an area slightly smaller the past decade and the contribution that than Texas From 1996 through 2005 Brazil lost an they have made to slow global warming are unprecedented average of 7 500 square miles 19 400 sq km of rain Doug Boucher Pipa Elias Jordan Faires forest per year But in 2005 things began to change and Sharon Smith Deforestation Success Stories Union of Concerned Scientists 2014 Brazil's deforestation did not stop but it declined by 70 percent between 2005 and 2014 By 2013 the

Bringing Back Our Tropical Forests — page 4 — Soy fields in Brazil cut into large areas of the Amazon rain forest amount lost to deforestation had declined to 2 255 square miles 5 840 sq km per year The country's greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 39 percent between 2005 and 2010 This decrease was the greatest in history AMAZON DEFORESTATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES The Amazon rain forest extends into eight South American countries but 60 percent of it is in Brazil Tropical rain forests are one of Earth's best defenses against global warming because they store more carbon than any other land ecosystem This function is increasingly important as burning fossil fuel adds excess carbon dioxide to the atmosphere Cut forests no longer absorb carbon dioxide so deforestation causes atmospheric carbon levels to rise Crops replacing rain forests absorb only a small percentage of the carbon

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