Each year, an area the size of Beijing plus Shanghai disappears from the Amazon rainforest. On September 30, 2008, Brazil announced that the rate ofdeforestationincreased more than three times in the past year. The Amazon rainforest covers around 4.1 million square kilometers of Brazil, nearly 60 percent of the country. The rainforest supports at least 10 percent of the world's known species. The 17 million people who live in the Brazilian Amazon depend on the land for their homes and livelihoods. Brazil is the world's biggest beef and soy exporter. Farmers need land for crops and to feed their cattle. Some burn patches of forest to clear the land. Others cut down trees for wood. They build roads to transport the wood. Brazil's economy is growing, but that growth comes at a price. In May, Brazil's environment minister, Marina Silva, quit her job. For six years, she tried to protect the forest. But she felt she was losing the battle against those who are eager to make money in the Amazon. The Amazon is the planet's largest absorber of carbon dioxide, a gas that can trap heat in the atmosphere. A world Wildlife Found study shows that 55 percent of the Amazon could be gone by 2030. Without those trees, billions of tons of carbon dioxide would stay in the atmosphere. They would speed up global warming. Brazilian researchers say that temperatures in the Amazon region will rise by two to three degrees by 2050. That, and the resulting lower rainfall, could turn 30-60 percent of the forest into grassland with only scattered trees. |