As much as twenty percent of the Amazon Rainforest has been lost in the past forty years due to illegal logging, fire, diseases, and storms. Not only are billions of trees cut down each year, but so are tens of millions of species of animals dying because these trees are considered homes in the eyes of these animals. I believe that deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest is a big problem, now, more than ever, while others believe that it’s a solution to many of our current economical problems. Many arguments can be placed in this subject, but I tried to narrow it down the the most important ones, which I believe are resources, deforestation and planting rates, and both habitat loss and environmental impacts.

Countless items are produced using wood in one way or another, and that’s why many illegal loggers are cutting down the rainforest, and it does significantly increase the job count. It’s a good source of money, which makes it a big attraction to a wide variety of people. One of the leading causes of destruction of this enormous jungle are increases in farmland. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as we get more valuables imported into the United States, but in the forest dwelling animal's perspective, it can be a bad thing. These animals thrive in the lush environment that the rainforest has to offer, but they won't be able to if it's gone. The Amazon produces many valuable items, from oxygen, all of the way to animal pelts, but one thing that most people don’t know is that many of these items are taken from the forests illegally. Although there are valuable resources from the Amazon that make up many of our household items that we use today, not all of what the Amazon has to offer have mass, and I’m referring to hydroelectric power.It's probably one of our most efficient energy sources, but its production speed is slowly decreasing. Dams produce hydroelectricity by allowing water to flow through turbines, and capture the friction along the way. The lower number of trees is causing less rainfall, which, in return, gives less hydroelectricity because of the shortage in water levels in the Amazon River. Hydroelectricity dates back all of the way to the ancient times to grind flour and has been evolving ever since.
The Brazilian government plays a huge role in slowing down the deforestation rate in the Amazon. According to an International Business Times article by Patricia Rey Mallén, they made a commitment in 2009 to cut down the rate by a minimum of eighty percent throughout the next decade, and had already managed to cut it down by fifty percent in between 2000 and 2012, which is approximately forty thousand square kilometers per year, down to twenty thousand square kilometers per year. Although their government made that commitment, destruction of the Amazonian jungle increased by just under two thirds from previous years. Patricia also noted that in 2000 through 2012, a whole 2.3 million square kilometers of the forest were lost throughout the planet, while 800 thousand square kilometers were planted, which adds up to a total of 1.5 million lost, also equal to the size of Mongolia.

Habitat destruction is probably the highest of my worries. The work that nature has built from something as simple as a cloud of condensed dust is rapidly getting destroyed everyday. This destruction, consequently, leads to the deaths of billions of animals, as well as plants. As previously mentioned, sometimes it’s hard to decide whether deforestation is bad or not, but it’s all about perspective. Deforestation is linked to many environmental problems, including one that everybody should know; global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency states that CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activity, and is naturally in the atmosphere as a part of the Earth's carbon cycle. That being said, increasing the amount of CO2 in the air alters the carbon cycle, as well as contributes to global warming, and has been ever since the Industrial Revolution. Because trees use photosynthesis to consume carbon dioxide and generate oxygen, they, too, play a role in preventing global warming. Therefore, deforestation causes a fraction of what’s known as global warming.

There are some beneficial causes of deforestation in the Amazon, yet it still has a big downside. Deforestation is a wide stretching topic, and can be divided into multiple subtopics. The most interesting and informative of these topics, in my opinion, are resources, deforestation and planting rates, and both habitat loss and environmental impacts. The forest, along with everything within it, are linked everybody's lives in one way or another, so why not take the time to think about it?