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| Sunday, 5 June 2005 |
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Junior Observer |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Amazing Amazon - Part II : The last frontier
Today we continue with our fascinating journey through the Amazon rainforest which covers over a billion acres, to learn more about its amazing biodiversity. The Amazon rainforest has been described as the 'Lungs of our Planet' because it continuously recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen, producing more than 20 per cent of the oxygen in the world! The biological treasures found in Amazonia is incomparable, but unfortunately just when we are beginning to appreciate them, we are losing them due to deforestation not only of the Amazon rainforest, but also of other such rainforests in the world.
Mammals found in the Amazon basin include the pink and grey river dolphin. The manatee, the rare uakari monkey, harpy eagles and giant river otters are also found in the Amazon. The largest river turtle in South America is also found here as is the highly endangered black caiman.
The life force of the Amazon, the world's greatest natural resource, is the Amazon river. It rises as a spring in the snow-capped Peruvian Andes mountains and flows for about 6,868 km or about 4,000 miles across the South American continent to the Atlantic Ocean. At its delta mouth at Belem, Brazil, the river is over 300 km wide. Even 1,000 miles inland it is still seven miles wide.The second largest river in the world after the Nile, the Amazon river flows through the centre of the rainforest and is fed by 1,100 tributaries, 17 of which are more than 1,000 miles long. It discharges approximately 46,000 gallons of water per second, which is 20 per cent of the combined discharge of water from rivers on Earth!
Over two-thirds of all the fresh water found on Earth is in the Amazon Basin's rivers, streams and tributaries. The Amazon is by far the largest watershed and river system in the world, occupying over six million square kilometres. During peak floods, the Amazon river can rise upward to 50 feet, inundating extensive areas of the surrounding forest. The rainy season, during which heavy flooding takes place, is from November to June.The river is so deep that ocean liners can travel up its length to 2,300 miles inland. The first European to navigate the Amazon in 1542 was a Spaniard named Francisco de Orellaria. Almost 14,000 miles of the Amazon waterway are navigable, and several miles through swamps and forests are penetrable by canoe.
It has been discovered that the pink dolphins move out of the main river during the rainy season into flooded areas. The world's largest freshwater fish called the pirarucu in Portuguese, which can reach upto eight feet in length, is found in this river. The Amazon basin, formed in the Paleozoic period, somewhere between 500 and 200 million years ago, is justly famed for being the largest area of rainforest on Earth. This drainage basin of the Amazon river is the largest in the world, covering an area of about 22 million square miles, with about one fifth of all the running water on the planet flowing through it.
Impact of rainforest destruction
* Nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and micro-organisms will be destroyed or threatened severely over the next quarter century. * Experts estimate that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species everyday due to rainforest destruction, at the rate of one and one-half acres every second. * As the rainforest species disappear, so do many possible cures for life-threatening disease. * Currently, 121 prescription drugs sold worldwide come from plant derived sources. About 25 per cent of western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients. Less than one per cent of these tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists.
* With disappearing tribes have gone centuries of accumulated knowledge of great medicinal value of rainforest species. * The US National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells, and 70 per cent of these are found in the rainforest. |
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The Amazon represents 54 per cent of the total rainforest left on
Earth. The Amazon rainforest is the last frontier, on Earth. It is the
refuge for a wide variety of plant and animal life. It is home to 57
endangered species including the jaguar which was nearly wiped out due to
hunting for its fur, until it was declared a protected species. 
The Amazon water lily, with a diameter of two metres is considered the
largest flower in the world. Home to more than half of the world's species
of fauna and flora, it contains the largest collection of living plant and
animal life. Over 300,000 species of plants have been identified. In the
1900s alone, seven species of birds and dozens of species of frogs and
fish have been identified. More are being discovered everyday! 
The massive amounts of silt from the run - off from the rainforest
carried by the mighty Amazon river, deposited at the mouth of the river,
has created the largest river - island in the world - Marajo Island.The
Amazon river contains over 3000 rare aquatic species including the two
types of river dolphins previously mentioned, allegators, otters and
turtles. 
It is less than 200 metres above sea level.Once a vast sea of tropical
forest, the Amazon rainforest is now scarred by roads, farms, ranches and
dams. More than 20 per cent of rainforest in the Amazon has been destroyed
today. Brazil, which has a third of the world's rainforest, is also the
world's greatest rainforest destroyer. 
* Amazonian tribes are fast disappearing. Five centuries ago there were
ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rainforest, whereras today
there are less than 200,000. In Brazil alone, more than 90 indigenous
tribes have been destroyed by European colonists since the 1900s. 
