The Rainforest Fights for Survival

The Amazon rainforest is struggling for survival. It is like watching a big animal slowly dying from hunger. In Brazil, carnaval queen Viviane Castro recently paraded nude with “vendese” painted on her stomach to protest selling Amazonian resources to developers. In Peru, clashes between the government forces and indigenous tribes have turned violent. They are protesting actions to take large portions of their forest for oil and mining projects. Everywhere people are very concerned about the future of this valuable natural treasure.

The region covers most of the Amazon River basin in South America. The river basin occupies seven million square kilometers. About 80% of that is rainforest. Through this area flows 20% of all the free-flowing fresh water
on earth. It touches nine different countries with more than half in Brazil
and a large part in Peru. The Amazon contains more than 50% of the remaining rainforests on the planet. It is by far the largest and richest in the world.

It has existed for at least 55 million years and native tribes have lived in these jungles for thousands of years. The region holds amazing diversity. One in ten known species in the world live in the Amazon area. It is the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world. So far,
at least 40,000 plant species, 3,000 fish, 1,294 birds, 427 mammals, 428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles have been found there. One in five of all the birds in the world live there.

The main sources of deforestation in the Amazon are human settlement and development. Farmers are constantly moving to new areas and clearing more land. This has caused huge environmental damage. Over 90% of the land deforested since 1970 is used for livestock. At the current rate, in two decades the Amazon rainforest could be reduced by 50%.

As more territories are developed, the indigenous communities of people continue to disappear. The others struggle to fight for their cultural survival
and the fate of their land. Most tribes in the Amazon do not have clear boundaries, which makes their land easy targets for developers seeking their natural resources. Thousands of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.