Why should the preservation of Amazon Rain Forest be a global responsibility?

Name: Course: GEO 100 Date: Table of contents Introduction 2 Historical Geography 3 Geomorphology 5 Economic Geography 6 Urban Geography 7 Climatology 8 References 15 Introduction Amazon rainforest or Amazon tropical rain forest is also known by the name Amazonia. Due to the Amazon River that traverses throughout the basin, white sand ecosystem is also part of the Amazonia which presents a variety of flora and fauna (Adeney, Christensen, Vicentini, CohnHaft 2016) which we shall

Running HEAD: AMAZON PRESERVATION 1
Why should the preservation of Amazon Rain Forest be a global responsibility?
Name:
Course: GEO 100
Date:

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Table of contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
Historical Geography...................................................................................................................3
Geomorphology.............................................................................................................................5
Economic Geography...................................................................................................................6
Urban Geography.........................................................................................................................7
Climatology...................................................................................................................................8
References...................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Amazon rainforest or Amazon tropical rain forest is also known by the name Amazonia.
It is found in South America in Amazon basin region which is estimated to be 7 Million km2 and
the forest covers approximately 5.5 Million km2. . Although the major portion of the forest is
located within Brazil, it is also in other nine nations including Peru, Columbia, Ecuador,
Suriname, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana and French Guiana. Amazon is the world’s biggest
rainforest which can be said to be larger than Congo basin and Indonesia rainforests combined.
Amazonia is the only world’s assorted or diverse rainforest that has contributed to a great extent
the South America total biodiversity due to its large number of animal and plant species.
(Antoneli et.al 2018). According to WWF (World Wide Fund), Amazon rainforest is globally
renowned as respiratory of environmental services both for the local communities and the rest of
the world hence the name “lungs of the world”. The forest cycle a large amounts carbon and
oxygen thus influencing to a greater extent the atmospheric carbon level and global climate
(Gloor 2019). This massive forest has been a source of food, medicine and other resources such
as rubber and Brazil nuts for hundreds of indigenous people who live in and around the forest.
Deforestation has seen rubber extraction and timber harvesting penetrating the remotest parts of
the forest in the last century. Due to the Amazon River that traverses throughout the basin, white
sand ecosystem is also part of the Amazonia which presents a variety of flora and fauna
(Adeney, Christensen, Vicentini, Cohn‐Haft 2016) which we shall discuss with a deeper
perspective in the following chapters. Although it has a great importance to the humans all over
the world, Amazonia has continued to disappear due to deforestation and this is affecting the
ecosystem extensively globally.

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Historical Geography
It is believed that initially the Amazon River streamed towards the west, possibly as
fragment of a greater Congo (Zaire) river structure from Central Africa when the landmasses
were amalgamated as portion of Gondwana. Fifteen million years back, the Andes were molded
by the impact of the Southern America continental plate with the Nazca slab. The forming of the
Andes and the connection of the Brazilian and Guyana substratum buffers, gridlocked the river
and instigated the Amazon to be a massive internal sea. Progressively the sea transformed into an
enormous marshy, non-saline-water lagoon and its inhabitants were adapted to life in the
freshwater.
Scholars trusted that Amazon rainforest was initially inhabited by a small number of
tribes who were hunters and gatherers. One of the writers who supported this theory was Betty
Meggers who authored a book called Amazonia: “Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise”.
Continuous study though has shown that the area had a high population due to the archeological
findings and various geoglyphs which has been discovered dating from year 0-1250 AD. It is
believed that the first European to journey the Amazon was Francisco de Orellana who fought
with the Tapuya tribe who were fighting together with their female counterparts and that is
where he came up with the name Amazonas. Geographers, Archeologists and geologists who
studied the history of Amazonia believed that humans got to America approximately 16,000
years (Schaan 2016) settling on the western Pennsylvania and started migrating throughout the
entire continent including the Southern America where the Amazon is located by 11,000 years.
The researchers have also identified that the humans did not penetrate the forest in those early
years but did so much later when agriculture was introduced.

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According to researchers, Amazon rainforest was occupied by hunters and gatherers
11,200 years ago who depended on fruits and seeds from the forest and game meat from wild
animals that they could hunt near their settlements. The archeological research that was
conducted at Pedra Pintada shown that there was a cave which shown the signs of occupation in
the year between 11,200 and 9,800(Schaan 2016) with tools which were stanched and had two-
faced points which they used to gather fruits and other foods in the forest and the flood areas of
the Amazon River. Inside of the cave was panted in red, yellow and white themes which shown
mimicked humans, astronomic bodies, handprints, animals and arithmetical features. The
development of Amazonia can be attributed to various factors which include but not limited to
ecological and geographical multiplicity which impacts livelihood, progression and methods, a
continuous human presence in the region for the last 12,000 years and interruptions and curtailed
occupation in the area and the colonization by the Europeans in the 16th century and the current
or the 19th century colonization (Tigre 2017). Collective distribution models and other
environmental factors were used to explain the pre-cultivation, early cultivation and late
cultivation periods which explains the distribution and settlement of human population. The
models shows that the Greater Arizona region was occupied during pre-cultivation period and
the population grew during the early cultivation period occupying the forest and the western side
of the Amazon River (McMichael & Bush 2019). Significant changes have occurred throughout
the history and have affected the settlement and distribution of human population in the region
and currently it is believed that there are native people who still occupy the rainforest though
they might be influenced and affected by the outside world. The Amerindians who are still in the
forest wear modern clothes, use metallic utensils to cook and go to the market to buy food for
their daily consumption. Currently, number of people who live in the Amazon is not clearly

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known but it is approximated that 20 million people in all 8 countries where Amazon sits
including in French Guiana are categorized as indigenous people of Amazon where two-thirds of
that population live in Peru and most of them living in the Amazon highlands. In Brazil, large
forest areas which equals to 12.5 of the whole of Brazil were set apart for 450,000 Indians who
occupies 26.4 percent of the Amazon basin region. This was done in 1988 in their constitution
and this enabled the community to reverberate after the country’s decrease in population and
today 60% of Brazil’s Indian people reside in Amazon (Butler 2019).
Geomorphology
Geomorphology can be defined as a science that seeks to determine the origin, evolution,
establishment and distribution of landforms on the surface of the earth. It gives a noteworthy
insight in the formation of physical features and landscapes and the study of physical geography
of various regions worldwide. The Amazon Basin influences the earth’s climate, water bodies
and atmospheric gases and therefore it is crucial to understand its formation and how it
influences the earth’s climate change (Islam et al. 2015). Amazonia has one Great River called
the Amazon River which has structures and subsidiaries splitting at a 900 angle and the channels
are convolutedly disheveled. The Basin exhibits a narrow advancement and weather alterations
across the region and has one main partition of forests in the upland areas – geomorphological
soil age and forced nutrient stages. It is generally characterized by tropical rain forest, deciduous
forests, grasslands, periodic forests and water-logged forests. The species found on the earliest
soils of Central Amazonia shows a less biomass in comparison to those that are on soils of
Western Amazonia, because the richness of the soils is influenced by the number of years and
the wealth of the vegetation and animals inhibiting it also varies. In the Amazonia, Ecuador has
more reptiles and amphibians compared to that in Brazil because its soil is more ancient (Jessica,

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Deichmann, Albertina, Lima &Williamson 2011). The Amazon region also has various
geographical features which includes river banks and islands, waterfalls, Riverine sandbars, thick
flooded forests, lesser density forests, exposed lakes or plain and scattered shrubs. Each of these
landforms has a unique soil arrangement and vegetation structure. The fresh and young
vegetation is mostly found on the steep land and valleys and on the western part of the alluvial
grasslands. Plants and vegetation is mostly populated on the slab lands and on the sandy
savannahs and the forests are highly concentrated on the sandstone table lands and .on the
highlands. Due to the large volume of the debris and the water of Amazon River, crustal
movements occurs which dictates the type of features that are formed on the region throughout
the river course (Ibanez, Riccomini & de Miranda 2014).
Economic Geography
In the previous paragraphs, we have noted that Amazonia is famously referred as the
“lungs of the earth” because it’s numerous trees produces a large amount of oxygen to the
atmosphere and absorbs carbon dioxide. This is one of the greatest value of Amazon forest to
human kind globally and that is the main reason that its preservation should be of great concern
to every nation. There are other economic activities that take place in the Amazon rainforest the
major one being the extraction of rubber; the region is the leading rubber producer in the world
(Gilbert 2018). Gold mining still take place in the Amazonia though this is a great threat to the
forest since it involves cutting down of traditional trees which has been in existence for many
decades, and destruction of fertile top soil. Sometimes the miners use mercury which is
dangerous to human health and adversely affect the Amazonia biodiversity (Asner &Tupayachi
2017). In the year 2012 various governments raised their voices to condemn the gold mining in

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Amazonia because of deforestation which had seen approximately 4000 ha of land deforested
but the mining activities increased by 40% between the year 2012-2016.
Tourism has also been another major economic activity in this region. Amazonia clean
and diverse biodiversity has attracted tourist in large numbers. The main activities that attracts
tourists in the region are rock climbing, photography of unique wildlife: both animals and plants,
adventure and fishing (Figueiredo, Hamoy, Farias, Bahia & Meguis 2017). There are numerous
national parks and jungles that are visited by many tourists annually and this has contributed
significantly to the economy of South America.
Urban Geography
Urbanization is where a rural setting transforms into a city and populations in rural
setting moves to urban area. While this may signify economic growth and development of a
region, it may also have adverse effects on the environment (Martins, Couceiro, Melo Moreira &
Hamada 2017) especially because of deforestation and pollution that comes with the setting up of
industries, housing and transportation channels. In the Amazon region, urbanization was felt
more from the year 1990 than the previous years because capital investments and projects had
not come up in this region. According to John Browder who is an Author and a Professor at the
Virginia Tech University, cities came up around the transportation centers in the Amazon and
roads were the chief movers of urbanization. The cities like Manaus and Rio Negro has prompted
the construction of a 3.5 km bridge which is used by the dwellers. He also notes that the Brazil
government has a vison of spending $120 billion in building of dams, highways, railway lines
and transmission lines especially in Folha de San Paulo (Berg 2011). Bel Monte Hydroelectric
dam which has been in construction since 1970 was declared illegal by a federal magistrate and

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also the indigenous people have been protesting the same for a long time. These projects and
other activities in the region has seen a continuous increase of deforestation and clearing of the
bushland which has adverse effects on the Amazonia. Conventionally it was thought that the
clearing has benefits to human kind because they depended on the forest for food and other gain,
but as the deforestation progresses, it has proved that the rip-offs are more than the benefits (da
Silva, Prasad & Diniz-Filho 2017). Due to these effects, the involved governments have come up
with the policies to avert and prevent further deforestation and wild fires which has increased
rapidly in the recent past, in order to save this precious gift to human kind.
Climatology
Climatology is defined as the study of climate of a region and how changes of the same
has taken place over a certain period of time and the atmospheric settings that leads to various
weather patterns for a certain place. The Amazon basin as discussed earlier sits on an area of 7M
km and approximately 40% of it is covered by tropical rainforest. This region consequently
receives 2200 mm rainfall annually and when evaporation takes place much heat is released to
the atmosphere which causes the region to experience more rainfall and discharge which
amounts to around 15% of the freshwater that is drained into the oceans (Marengo et al. 2018).
Various studies has shown for a fact that Amazon forest is very critical to the global climate
system due to the moisture recycling that occurs in the entire forest which contributes to
atmospheric movement, precipitation, energy and carbon sequences. Despite this great
importance of the Amazonia biodiverse in global climate, it is at high risk of climate alteration
and due to the threats such as deforestation, forest disintegration and the world fires. In
continuation (Marengo et al 2018), various research has shown an increase in average air
temperatures to about 0.60 between the year 1973 to 2013.Though the rise in carbon dioxide in

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the atmosphere may leads to growth of more trees, it also causes an increase in temperatures the
causing global warming which is a topic of greater concern (Lyra, Chou, & Sampaio 2016).
Carlos Nobre a scientist at the University of Sao Paulo compares Amazon rain forest with a sink
that sucks in Carbon dioxide which traps heat from the atmosphere. It is estimated that the world
emits a total of 40 billion tons of Carbon Dioxide gas and Amazon alone absorbs 2 billion tons
which is 5% of the Carbon and therefore it plays a very critical role in averting global climate
change. Forests are typical in recycles their own water to give out rainfall and deforestation and
clearing affects the amount of the expected rain in the region. He continues to say that if 20-25%
of Amazonia forest is deforested, dry seasons will be prolonged and the forest will turn into a
grassland savannah. Deforestation in the Amazon region has seen a significant decrease of
rainfall which has affected to a greater extent the regional hydrology levels and has continued to
be a threat to the Amazonia biodiversity. Majorly the deforestation is being caused by lunching
and agriculture by illegal grabbers, who also causes fires that burn extensive areas in the forest
and literally no legal actions are taken against them in order to stop the trend. In 2016, WWF
called for an adoption of an approach that covers the whole of Amazon region and that will
integrate both preservation and sustainable development in order to ensure a continuous care of
the Amazon biome and biodiversity. They noted in that year that approximately 250 dams and 20
highway projects were proposed on the region and they would cut through the dense forest and
this will have a serious variation to the hydrology and water structure if effected (Parker 2020).
In my opinion, Amazonia is the one of the most critical ecosystem that has countless
benefits to the existence of life on the earth. Its ability to produce approximately 6% of the global
oxygen and consequently absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is

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priceless and cannot be traded for anything. There is no level of development that can justify
clearing and deforesting of this support of life and therefore all governments involved especially
Brazil and Peru should enact policies that will protect this ecosystem from further destruction.
Animals, insects and plant species that are found in this region are unique and are not seen in any
other part of the world and their presence contributes in keeping the forest dynamic and vigorous
by giving important nutrients to it from their remains when they die, seeds and food remains that
fall on the surface. Therefore, it should be a collective responsibility of all nations through
bodies like the UN (United Nations), UNEP (Unite Nations Environment Programme) and
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organization) to ensure that this
biodiversity is protected and preserved for future generations and also as a way of dealing with
global warming which has become an issue of great concern recently. In 2015, the UN held a
climate change conference in Paris France, where the involved 196 nations and 174 participants
signed an agreement to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emission to below 2% and between
the year 2030 and 2050,the temperatures should be limited to 1.50C which to be realized it
requires nil emissions. Practical policies should also be enacted in order to enhance protection of
Amazon forest and aim to increase the 44% of the protected area and prevent further
encroachment. If nothing is not done urgently to prevent further deforestation, future generations
might only read about the ’beautiful’ AMAZONIA in books.

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APPENDIX A-AMAZON FOREST LOCATION

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(Cinemergente 2014)
AMAZON RAINFOREST IS IN SOUTH AMERICA
APPENDIX B- MAP OF AMAZON FOREST AFFECTED BY FIRES

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World map 2019
Amazonia has been affected by forest fires.
APPENDIX C- MAP OF DEFORESTED AREAS OF AMAZON RAINFOREST

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(ACA 2019)
Base Map. Deforestation Hotspots in the western Amazon.
Appedix D- Amazon rain forest.

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Amazonia rain forest in Peru.
(Rhett Butler 2019)
APPENDIX E-A MAP OF PROTECTED AREAS OF AMAZONIA.

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(RAISG2012)
A MAP SHOWING THE PROTECTED AREAS OF AMAZON FOREST

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References
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‐Haft, M. (2016). White
‐sand ecosystems
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why_amazon_important/

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