HUMAN IMPACT (UGLY!)

Humans first made their way into the Amazon rainforest after the glacial era, which allowed humans to travel to different areas due to frozen oceans. Once people arrived to the Amazon, they split into cultures making their home in the mountain and forest areas (AmazonRainforest.org).

By the second half of the twentieth century, governments within the Amazon area, especially in Brazil, began creating cities and roads attracting migration, which started the problems for the Amazon rainforest (AmazonRainforest.org). The biggest impacts on the Amazon are agriculture, cattle ranching and wood chopping and exporting. Damage from wood chopping comes from those who conduct the method illegally. Those who carry out the method legally do not create much damage (AmazonRainforest.org). Aside from these impacts, fires also account for much the Amazon’s deforestation. Unlike some plants, plants in the Amazon are not adapted to fires. These fires not only release carbon into the atmosphere, but they cause the forest areas closest to land to be more susceptible to future fires. The drier weather uses potential sources of ignition, such as cattle pastures and agriculture fields (Mountinho and Shwartzman 24).

                  Image source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/14/forests.conservation

The burning of trees causes the trees to release a great percentage of their stored carbons. Trees conveniently store carbon, making it better for our atmosphere, but once burned, that carbon is released and contaminates our air. The following table shows the shockingly high percentage of carbon released from vegetation and soil when humans conduct different deforestation methods: 

table source: Tropical Deforestation and Climate Change (Paulo Moutinho and Stephan Schwartzman) p. 15

According to NASA researchers during dry seasons, the Amazon is experiencing higher rainfall and warmer temperatures each year in the deforested areas (Mongabay.com). One researcher, Andrew Negri, explains: “In deforested areas, the land heats up faster and reaches a higher temperature, leading to localized upward motions that enhance the formation of clouds and ultimately produce more rainfall” (Mongabay.com).

The Amazon has experienced two droughts and record flooding within the years of 2005 and 2010 (Mongabay.com). The picture above is from a 2010 New York Times article showing one of the worst droughts the the Amazon's experienced:

http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/drought-in-the-amazon-up-close-and-personal/

According to BluePlanetBiomes.org, "more than 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed and is gone forever" (Blueplanetbiomes.org).

Sources: Tropical Deforestation and Climate Change (Paulo Moutinho and Stephan Schwartzman)

http://news.amazon-rainforest.org/amazon-rainforest-to-be-extinct-by-2080.html

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/1214-nasa_amazon_river_drought.html
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/amazon.htm