The Amazon Forest

The Amazon Forest

The Amazon is a vast region located in South America, crossed by the most important river in the world in flow and the second in length, the Amazon. In addition to hosting 10% of the world's biodiversity and the largest watershed on the planet, this territory is home to 34 million people, the vast majority of whom still live by the services rendered by an exceptional Amazonian nature.

 

The Amazon is home to phenomenal biodiversity: 40,000 plant species, 3,000 freshwater fish species and more than 370 reptiles, one in ten known on Earth. Added to this biodiversity is the 550 million hectares of dense forest, a third of the remaining tropical rain forests on the planet and 6,600 km of winding rivers ... These are all assets that justify the importance of the Amazon for the whole planet.

In addition, this region has the distinction of hosting hundreds of thousands of species, the majority of which are still unknown and / or not listed. By its diversity of habitat and wetlands, the Guyana ecoregion also hosts thousands of arboreal species (birds, insects, mammals, amphibians) such as the Agami heron, the rooster, the titan, the dendrobates, the sloth, the pygmy marmoset, the spider monkey, different species of tamarind or even species living in humid environments such as the giant otter, the black caiman or the hoazin, a completely strange bird. It is also one of the last land refuges for the jaguar, saki satan, harpy eagle and pink dolphins among many other endangered species.

Location
The Amazon is a vast region that covers nine rapidly developing countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana (Overseas Department French)

Area
6,700,000 km²

Weather
Equatorial with high temperatures and humidity

Present species
Jaguar, macaw, Amazon pink dolphin, spider monkey or “splint”, dendrobatid (poisonous frogs), anaconda, piranha, iguana
Bird on a branch in the Pacaya-Samiria national reserve, Peruvian Amazon
An incessant glare
Since 1999, at least 2,200 new plant and vertebrate species have been discovered in the Amazon biome by WWF, in addition to thousands of other species, including invertebrates. Between 2010 and 2013, more than 440 new species were discovered there.
Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, Peruvian Amazon

A MISCELLANEOUS HERITAGE
The forests and streams of the Amazon, despite their luxuriance, are fragile and threatened. Human activities (mining, agriculture, energy and transport infrastructure) as well as climate change are responsible for the degradation and destruction of the region's ecosystems.

Agricultural expansion and extensive livestock farming

Amazon forests are suffering as global demand for intensive agricultural and production products such as soybeans and beef increases as millions of trees are felled each year to establish the crops and pastures needed for these highly impactful activities . New pastures occupy 80% of deforested areas in the Amazon, equivalent to 14% of annual global deforestation. Fires used to enrich soils and demarcate fields often gain in nearby forests and erosion by runoff from bare soils, contaminates rivers and their aquatic ecosystems. Deforestation caused by livestock also contributes to climate change, releasing some 340 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year.

Poorly planned infrastructure
Illegal or unsustainable extraction of natural resources
Climate deregulation

Deforestation in the region mainly consists of converting wooded areas into agricultural fields. More than a fifth of the Amazon forest has already been destroyed, and the remaining one is threatened. In ten years, the area of ​​forest lost in the Amazon has reached between 415,000 and 587,000 km2; by comparison, France has a total area (without the overseas territories) of 547,030 km2. Most of the converted land is used to produce food for livestock51.

In Brazil, the INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais / National Institute for Space Research) produces figures on deforestation every year. Their estimate is based on 100 to 220 images taken during the dry season by the satellites of the Landsat program, and considers only the loss of the biome of the Amazon rainforest, not the loss of natural space or savannah in the forest. According to the INPE, the biome of the Amazon rainforest, originally 4,100,000 km2 in Brazil, was reduced to 3,403,000 km2 in 2005, which represents a loss of 17.1% 52.

According to a scenario from the World Bank53, it is envisaged, at the current rate, that 40% of the Amazon will disappear in 205054. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), it is 55% by 203055. Certain hypotheses , and their consequences on the global climate, are even more alarmist56,57.

The production of meat and dairy products is responsible for 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon forest58.

Forest protection
France created, in 2007, the Amazonian park of Guyana, which, with the Brazilian reserves, forms the largest protected area of ​​tropical forest in the world.

In September 2017, the Rock in Rio company decided, until 2023, to reforest 30,000 hectares of Amazonian forest in Brazil, or 0.005% of the total area, by planting 73 million trees, including 200 different types of seeds. . It is the biggest reforestation project in the world.