September 5th is celebrated as International Amazon Rainforest Day. Protecting the Amazon is the responsibility of all nations. The largest tropical forest on the planet harbors unique biodiversity and plays an irreplaceable role in regulating the Earth's climate.
The conservation of the Amazon Rainforest is highly relevant in the context of the environmental and climate emergency agenda.
There is diverse content about this rainforest in various languages, and we have brought this to the translation niche precisely because it is a global subject.
Many scientific articles, essays, and reports discuss Amazon Rainforest richness and, more importantly, the threats it faces due to human activities.
.avif)
Collage by editorial staff
What do you know about the Amazon Rainforest? What environmental impacts has it suffered in recent years? Have you heard of the Legal Amazon?
This article will help you get oriented with this topic.
Where is the Amazon Forest? What is the difference between the Amazon Rainforest and the Legal Amazon?
The Amazon Rainforest is distributed as follows: approximately 60% is in Brazil, while the remaining 40% is divided among the South American countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
See the distribution in the map below.
.avif)
Many associate the Amazon Rainforest with Brazil because it has the largest concentration of the forest. In Brazil, it is present in the states of Amazonas, Acre, Amapá, Rondônia, Pará, and Roraima.
In fact, this date (September 5th) marks the creation of the Province of Amazonas in 1850, which is now the Brazilian state of Amazonas, home of the largest concentration of the Amazon Rainforest.
The Amazon is also the name of the biggest of the Brazilian biomes. The Amazon Rainforest mainly represents this biome but, in Brazil, also includes other ecosystems, such as floodplains (flooded forests) and savannas.
.avif)
Image by Nareeta Martin on unsplash.com
In this country, there is a political division called the Legal Amazon (Amazônia Legal, in Portuguese), created to care for the socioeconomic and sustainable development of the Amazon region. It occupies around 59% of Brazilian territory.
The Legal Amazon shares the same social and economic challenges, which is why this division has a sociopolitical rather than geographic bias. The Legal Amazon also includes parts of the Brazilian biomes of Cerrado and Pantanal. See the map below.
.avif)
Why is the Amazon Rainforest so important to the world?
The forest covers an area of 6.7 million km². Its importance to the world is unquestionable, and some of the main reasons are:
- Biodiversity: The forest is home to 15% of the planet's biodiversity!
- Carbon absorption from the atmosphere: It has a high capacity for storing CO2eq (carbon dioxide equivalent) in its soil and trees.
- Global air conditioning: It releases about 20 trillion liters of water into the atmosphere daily through the evapotranspiration of its trees' leaves. These are the so-called flying rivers, which carry rain to other parts of the globe.
- Source of nutritious foods: Açaí, guaraná, cupuaçu, buriti, camu-camu, tucumã, bacuri, and mangaba, among others.
- Variety of medicinal herbs: Raw materials for medicines.
- The Amazon Basin: the largest river basin in the world, with around a fifth of the total volume of fresh water on the planet!
Besides its biological and ecological riches, the Amazon has cultural wealth. About 1.5 million of the Amazon population is indigenous, distributed across 385 ethnic groups. Additionally, September 5th also marks the International Day of Indigenous Women.
.avif)
Image by Deb Dowd to unsplash.com
In Brazil alone, there are nearly 900 thousand indigenous people, who speak 274 indigenous languages. Currently, there are 107 records of the Indigenous Peoples living in isolation in the Amazon region, according to IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.
On this Amazon Rainforest Day, talking about the people of the Amazon is a crucial point because the problems it faces come from the fact that many think the region is just a vast uninhabited forest.
This ignorance opens doors to exploitation to obtain meat, soy, palm oil, oil, gold, and other products that yield immediate profit. It’s a global system that finances the destruction of the forest to produce these commodities.
What threats does the Amazon Rainforest face today?
The exploitation of natural resources is at the root of the problems destroying the Amazon Rainforest.
Scientists talk about the proximity to a tipping point, a point at which resources will no longer be available and the damage will be irreversible.
Some current problems threatening the Amazon Rainforest include deforestation, illegal logging, illegal mining, criminal fires caused by humans, wildlife trafficking, murder of environmentalists, land grabbing, and invasion of indigenous lands.
What these actions have in common is the greed behind the motivations and the profit for a small group of people.
The conservation of the Amazon is, actually, about saving ourselves.
What is the way forward?
These are some causes to fight for on Amazon Rainforest Day:
- Stop deforestation
- Restore forests and natural ecosystems
- Transform the market to not endanger our future, that is, create new sustainable development models
- Strengthen activism and ethical environmental communication
- Restructure a new food system based on agroecology and agrarian reform
- Achieve climate justice
- End the era of fossil fuels
- Talk about environmental racism and value Indigenous lives, culture, and wisdom
We already know the solutions. What remains now is for the governments of each country to work to achieve them! Making progress on these fronts would be the best way to celebrate this September 5th.
References:
VILLAR, Rosana. The many dangers this Amazon Rainforest Day. Greenpeace Brazil, 4 September 2023. Available in:
<https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/story/the-many-dangers-on-amazon-rainforest-day/>.
Jornal O ECO. DICIONÁRIO AMBIENTAL – O que é a Amazônia Legal. Available in: <https://oeco.org.br/dicionario-ambiental/28783-o-que-e-a-amazonia-legal/>.
IWGIA. Indigenous people in Brazil. Available in:
<https://www.iwgia.org/en/brazil.html>.
AMAZON AID. People of the Amazon. Available in:
<https://amazonaid.org/resources/about-the-amazon/peoples-of-the-amazon/>.
Unlock the power of glocalization with our Translation Management System.
Unlock the power of
with our Translation Management System.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
