Brazil, and How It Matters!
Why you should care about Brazil!
The lush, diverse rainforest of the Amazon covers over one billion acres, so it has a many plants, animals, and natives. At one time there were 200,000 natives in the rainforest. The forest makes 20% of all of the world’s oxygen, and is often called “the lungs of our planet”. There are three thousand types of fruits in the Amazon Rainforest, but we use only two hundred. The natives use two thousand. There are three thousand types of plants in the rainforest that are active against cancer.
Land converted for cattle operations yields an owner $60 per acre. For timber logging, land is worth $400 per acre. If these renewable resources are harvested, they yield the owner $2,400.
The Amazon Rainforest contains more than half of the world’s animals. One hectare contains seven hundred and fifty types of trees, and one thousand five hundred types of higher plants.
Although this rainforest seems to thrive, our deforestation could consume the rainforest in forty years or less. One and a half acres of this rainforest is being consumed every second. Half of the organisms will be lost in one-fourth century. One hundred and thirty-seven organisms are lost per day from deforestation.
However, we still are studying animals even as they are lost. Some frogs have poisonous skin, whistling ducks gather in flocks, and some Brazilian ducks are similar to European ducks. There are so many I can not tell and describe them all, so here are some of the first I found.
The yapok is the only marsupial mammal. It has brown and white striped fur. The yapok’s body can grow up to twelve inches long, and the tail, up to sixteen inches.
The limkin, aramus guarana, grows up to two feet tall. It eats mollusks for food and uses the beak it has to break shells.
The spoonbill cochicanus cochicanus grows up to twenty inches tall. It has a spoon shaped beak; two inches wide, three inches tall. It lives on coasts and rivers. It eats worms, crustaceans, and fish.
Then there is the sun bittern, which grows to twenty inches in length. It feeds on insects, crustaceans, and small fish. It catches these with the harpoon like beak it has.
Brazil is an interesting and exciting place to learn about and has much more information to learn about and see.
Bibliography
“Brazil.” www.wikipedia.org. March 13, 2008. Wikipedia. 13 Mar 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil>.
Dorst, Jean. The Amazon World Nature Encyclopedia. Raintree Publishers, 1989.
Heinrichs, Ann. Brazil. New York: Children’s Press, 2008
Momsen, Richard P.. “Brazil.”Compton Encyclopedia. 1989.
“Rainforest Facts.” www.rain-tree.com. 1996 to present. Raintree Nutrition Inc.. <http://www.rain-tree.com>.
Williams, Jerry R.. “The Amazon.” www.worldbookonline.com. Jan. 15, 2008. World Book. <http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=ar0158807>.
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