Amazon Rainforest Could Disappear by 2080

The Amazon rain forest includes lands in at least five South American nations.

Photo: NASA/ Wiki Media Commons

related articles

If logging of the Amazon Rainforest doesn't stop, the forest could be destroyed in less than 75 years, Brazilian environmentalist Philip Martin Fernside told TASS. Because evaporation from the forest itself creates the conditions necessary to sustain a rain forest, the entire forest need not be logged for the system to collapse.

The 1.2 billion acre Amazon basin is located in five nations -- Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana -- with Brazil holding 60%. The forest accounts for about half the world's remaining intact rainforest. Deforestation has increased in recent decades, as the government and private interests have built roads into and through the forest, individuals and conglomerates have cleared land for ranching, and other interests eye the forest for short-term gain.

Brazil has recently celebrated its success at slowing the rate of deforestation, conservation groups have long been active in the region and the world's industrialized nations are increasingly interested in schemes that might protect the forest as a way to offset their carbon emissions. Like other large forests, the Amazon holds carbon that -- if trees are logged or burned -- would be released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

COMMENTS ()