Amazon
Threats
Logging opens up the forest to slash and burn cultivators who cut remaining forest to grow crops.
© WWF-Canon / Mark EDWARDS
Market forces, population pressure and infrastructure advances are continuing to pry open the Amazon rainforest. As pressures on the region grow in intensity, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price to be paid is not only loss of biodiversity and habitat – but also a decreasing quality of life for people.
Forests
Today, rapid deforestation threatens the Amazon. At current rates, 55 percent of its forests could be gone by 2030—a looming disaster not only for the region’s plants and animals, but for the world.
Agriculture
Commercial agriculture is a major threat to the region's biodiversity, as soybean farming and cattle ranching are among the most acute causes of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
Unsustainable subsistence farming is also a threat. At one time, many migrants were encouraged to settle in the Amazon region. But instead of adapting their farming methods, they simply continued to use the techniques they learned back home. Unfortunately these techniques were suited to other soils and climates and inadequate for the Amazon region. Because land productivity in the Amazon usually falls sharply after three years, migrants are then forced to move - only continuing the cycle of destruction.
Infrastructure development and international finance
Major road projects provide conduits for poorly planned development and increased deforestation in newly opened areas of the Amazon. Other forms of destruction that have brought serious consequences to the region include floods caused by the construction of river dams for hydro-electrical power as well as mining that contributes to soil erosion and water contamination with toxic chemicals, such as mercury. Oil and gas exploration and the construction of pipelines also pose potentially serious threats to the region.
Climate Change
Warmer temperatures and less rainfall have combined to produce droughts of historical proportions. Long dry spells wither crops, decimate fisheries, and lead to forest fires. Over the past thirty years, rainfall has also become increasingly erratic, and at times, intense. Farmers’ crops have suffered from soil erosion and damage from heavy rains, along with spoilage from increasing humidity. Shifting rainfall patterns have affected planting and harvesting times too, which ultimately disrupts production. Learn more and find out what WWF is doing to help.
Wildlife trade
The remote borders between Amazon countries are ideal places for traffickers to export wild animals. Birds in the Amazon are prime targets, and some are sold live while others are killed to supply feathers, skins and other body parts. Reptiles are highly valued for their skins and live reptiles are also popular pets. In the past ten years, the world demand for reptiles by pet shops, educational and scientific institutions as well as for food, has dramatically increased. Of all mammal species from the Americas that are traded, 95 percent are found in Brazil – one of the major suppliers of primates along with the Guianas and Peru.
