Amazon Ecology

2002-05-01

The Amazon River carries rain and snowfall from high in the Andes Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. Along its journey, the river has created a unique environment that serves people beyond the borders of Brazil. The Amazon River basin is possibly the earth's most fragile and necessary ecosystem. The basin holds and astonishing twenty percent of the earth's fresh water, more than the next six largest rivers combined. The flow of the Amazon is so powerful that it dilutes the saltwater more than one hundred miles of beyond the coastline.

The Amazon River basin is a rainforest or jungle. It is home to a diversity of life forms found nowhere else on earth. The rainforest includes more than two million insect species of insects, one hundred thousand plants, two thousand species of fish and six hundred mammals. The basin also has huge reserves of bauxite, nickel, copper, tin and timber. The flow of the Amazon River can also be harnessed to provide hydroelectric power. Trees and vegetation in the basin help to balance carbon dioxide and oxygen. Trees and vegetation use carbon dioxide to make their food and release oxygen into the atmosphere.

The rainforest of the Amazon River basin provides a valuable resource to the entire planet, but it is being destroyed. People are moving into the Amazon basin and clearing the rainforest to build cities. The rainforest is often cleared to create grazing land for cattle. Finally, miners clear the land in order to extract its minerals.

The deforestation of the Amazon basin may have long reaching effects. When the trees are removed, we reduce the amount of carbon dioxide taken from the air. Some scientists predict that the buildup of carbon dioxide will cause global warming. If the temperature of the earth rises, polar ice will melt, raising the level of the ocean and possibly flood south Florida.

The entire world depends on the rainforests in the Amazon basin and around the world. At Roosevelt Middle School in West Palm Beach, Florida, Mr. Alicia and his students have been raising money to buy small portions of the Amazon rainforest to ensure that it will not be destroyed. He feels that if children from around the world work together to preserve the Amazon basin, they will have helped themselves and the generations that will follow them.

To be cont'd