RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The Amazon is being deforested more than twice as fast as last year, Brazilian officials said Monday, acknowledging a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate.
Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said upcoming nationwide elections are partly to blame, with mayors in the Amazon region turning a blind eye to illegal logging in hopes of gaining votes locally.
Environmentalists blame the global spike in food prices for encouraging soy farmers and cattle ranchers to clear land for crops and grazing.
Amazon destruction jumped 228 percent in August when compared to the same month a year ago, according to a report from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. Some 292 square miles of Amazon was destroyed last month, compared to 89 square miles in August 2007.
The institute, which uses satellite imagery to track illegal logging, said the destruction was likely even worse than its figures show, since no information was available for about 26 percent of the Amazon covered by clouds during the tracking.
Aerial View of Sediment Run-off Caused by Massive Amazon Deforestation. This entire area has been stripped bare of forest, so there are no longer any plants, bushes or tree roots to hold soil...which runs off into rivers and streams, killing marine life, even after the animals on land have been killed due to deforestation.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26944664/wid=18298287
THINK AND POST:
What is your response to this article?
Why is it a bad idea to increase the rate at which we are cutting down the rainforest?
How can we get people to stop?
Please post your reponse in the comments section.
12 comments:
It's sad that people are cutting down trees in the rain forest. I can be more responsible about paper use. One day we might run out of trees.
I knew there were deforestation problems, but I didn't know how large of a problem it is until I read the article. It is surprising that the deforestation rate is twice as fast as last year. This is such a problem because it is causing mud to fill in the river areas and kill the aquatic wildlife, and it is also preventing CO2 from being extracted from the air. When deforestation happens at a faster rate, it is even more difficult to plant enough new trees to take their place. We can try to stop this problem by educating people about the problem and then trying to pass regulations to limit deforestation.
Wait -- you are not going to believe this. We just read this article that said that McDonalds needs 800 SQUARE MILES of trees to just provide enough paper for their fast food packaging needs each year. We did some research to find out how many trees, on average, are on ONE square mile of land.
We found that 1 sq. mi. = 640 acres
and there are approx. 150 trees on one acre.
so 150 x 640 x 800 = 7,680,000
That's over SEVEN and a HALF MILLION trees chopped down each year just to wrap BIG MACS!!!!!!
Can you believe that?
We also compared that to the NY Times Sunday paper fact we got today. A years worth of Sunday Papers is:
65,000 x 52 Sundays = 3,380,000
That almost THREE and a HALF MILLION TREES for Sunday News that you can read online anyway!!!!
"that's SO LAME!!" (Cole's words)
We were wondering how much oxygen that would produce for us?
We challenge you to find out!!!
my next question is...
so where do all of the McDonald's and NY Times trees come from?
They have to come from some where? Are we cutting down American trees?
OR
Are we buying cut trees from some other country -- paying them to cut down their forests?
THis is a BIG problem.
Does McDs and NYTimes use recycled paper?
I have so many questions!!!
I can't believe that 292 square miles of the amazon was destroyed.
We are cutting down the Amazon which lets all the water go out to the rivers and then to the ocean as it drags dirt which forms into mud and is killing the sea life. When the trees are cut down we kill the ecosystem, plants, insects, and animals.
We should let people know that 20% of the world's oxygen comes from the Amazon. We should also let people know that we should not buy anything that comes from the Amazon
unless it is sustainable.
WOW that is unbelievable! 7,680,000 trees are chopped down just to wrap food at McDonalds each year! THAT IS CRAZY!! I WANT TO SCREAM AND YELL AT THEM! Why should they be able to cut down so many trees each year for food when oxygen is crucial to our living. I mean, There are so many different places in the world where trees grow, but if we keep chopping and chopping when we need it the most, oxygen won't be there. AnD tHaT iS BAD!!
WHAT? THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! I AM STUNNED! =O
I dont know how mad i am right now! I thought the amazon was a preserved area! =O
I hate Mc'donalds and not just the food. it is so selfish that they are chopping down 7,680,000 just to wrap some food i think that if they recycled they could reduce their paper use to more than half of what they are using. i think that it is really important to hear the news that is going on in the world, but maybe we could just have a website or show it on tv, rather than wasting so much paper on New York Times papers.
I knew that the Amazon was being cut down, but I never would have expected it to be so bad if I hadn't
read the article!
I also cannot believe that OVER
7,000,000 trees are cut down every
year, TO WRAP FAST FOOD! Those trees better not be from a forest. If they do, the people who own the companies should be sent to prison. (Even if the trees are farmed.) The second
I read that 7,680,000 trees were used for those purposes, I couldn't
move my body for 10 seconds! How can we destroy so many oxygen producers for such useless purposes! Whoever does those things doesn't
have very much sense in their small brains.
I think that this is shocking that people are illegally cutting down trees. Its really bad to increase the cutting of trees because it is killing animals and plants and now marine life. We don't need to keep cutting trees we can recycle and reuse the paper.
i think that they should stop cutting down the trees in the rainforest. also we are cutting down WAY too much and WAY too fast. it is a bad idea to increase the rate at which we are cutting down trees because it can hurt the animals and there are no more roots to hold the soil so it runs into the water. i think if we get the word out to the world, and explain what is happening, maybe they will consider stopping.
i can not believe that people would kill plants and animals to get what they wanted. i know that there is a loss a loss of food but cant they find another way to get money. it feels like we are running out of time. how much time do we have until all the trees are gone? it doesn't look like we have that much time.
Post a Comment