Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest is a term widely used to describe the moist broadleaf forests of the Amazon Basin, encompassing 7 million km2 (1.2 billion acres), with parts located within nine nations: Brazil (with 60% of the rainforest), Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. This forest represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests. States or departments in four nations bear the name Amazonas for the Amazon.

Amazonian forests and carbon dynamics

More than one fifth of the Amazon Rainforest has already been destroyed; and the forest which remains is threatened. Not only are environmentalists concerned about the loss of biodiversity which will result from the forest's destruction, they are also concerned about the release of the carbon contained within the trees, which increases global warming.

Related Topics:
Carbon - Tree - Global warming

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Amazonian evergreen forests account for about 10% of the world's terrestrial primary productivity and 10% of the carbon stores in ecosystems {{mn|Melillo|1}} - on the order of 1.1 x 1011 metric tonnes of carbon {{mn|Tian|2}}. Amazonian forests are estimated to have accumulated 0.62 ± 0.37 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year between 1975 and 1996 {{mn|Tian|2}}. Fires related to Amazonian deforestation have made Brazil one of the top greenhouse gas producers. Brazil produces about 300 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year; 200 million of these are come from logging and burning in the Amazon (pdf file).

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In 1996, the Amazon was reported to have shown a 34 per cent increase in deforestation since 1992. A new report by a congressional committee says the Amazon is vanishing at a rate of 52,000 square kilometers (20,000 miles²) a year, over three times the rate for which the last official figures were reported, in 1994.

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