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

Running HEAD: AMAZON PRESERVATION 1
Why should the preservation of Amazon Rain Forest be a global responsibility?
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Course: GEO 100
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AMAZON PRESERVATION 2
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,