Importance of Amazon Rainforest

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Amazon is the world's largest rainforest, spanning more than 2 million square miles in northern South America, mainly in Brazil but also in parts of Peru, Colombia, and six other nations. It’s called a rainforest because of its rainy conditions. It is a vast tract of largely untamed jungle that is Earth’s most biodiverse region, filled with plants and trees and teeming with animals of all types and sizes — including many unknown to science. Though it has existed for 50 million years, the Amazon rainforest is now under threat from human activities, including devastating fires set to clear lots for ranching and agriculture as well as the mining of oil and gas, copper, iron, and gold. The rainforest contributes about $8.2 billion a year to Brazil's economy from products including rubber and timber. Scientists who study the Amazon worry that deforestation could bring the rainforest to an ecological “tipping point” at which the entire ecosystem collapses. That could cripple regional economies and cause the loss of many indigenous species.

The rainforest brings rainfall across South America, and much of the continent would become hotter and drier if large portions of it were to be destroyed. The shift to a more arid climate would devastate the vast agricultural areas farther south; parts of South America would become effectively unlivable. The decline of the Amazon rainforest could also affect the global climate. The Amazon rainforest stores a huge amount of carbon in its vegetation and soil. If the burning of vegetation released all that carbon into the atmosphere, efforts to limit climate change by cutting down on carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles and industrial processes would become pointless. Among the animals that live in the rainforest are some of the world’s rarest and most colorful birds; hundreds of monkey species; giant cats like jaguars and black panthers; and unusual creatures like tapirs and capybaras. It’s also home to crocodiles, lizards, giant snakes like the anaconda, amphibians like the famous poison dart frogs we well as rare pink river dolphins, and fish like arapaimas and piranhas.