The Amazon Rainforest is located at the South America continent. The Amazon Rainforest covers more than half of Brazil as seen in the picture above. Next we will take a look at the climate of the Amazon Rainforest.
The climate of Amazon Rainforest belongs to the tropical climate. The temperature remains around the same throughout the year without much changes. The average annual temperature is around 25-27 degree celcius. The Amazon Rainforest receives more rainfall from December to May,then significantly less rainfall from June to November. Next we shall take a look at the type of natural vegetations in Amazon Rainforest.
The vegetations of Amazon Rainforest is split into 4 different layer.
- The most bottom layer is called the Forest floor and generally no plants grow there due to the lack of sunlight at the most bottom layer of the forest.
- The next layer is called the Understory. There are also not much plant growth in the understory due to the lack of sunlight,however the plants here adapt uniquely to the lack of sunlight. They have wide,dark green leaves to collect as much as sunlight as possible.
- The second top layer is called Canopy. Most canopy trees have smooth, oval leaves that come to a point, known as a drip tip. This allows water to flow off the leaf quickly and prevents the growth of fungi, mosses, and lichens. The canopy's leaves are very dense and filter out about 80% of the sunlight. Many flowers and fruits grow in this layer. Epiphytes cover every available surface and bromeliads provide drinking water for the many canopy creatures, and breeding pools for tree frogs.
- The top layer is called the emergent layer. The emergent layer is the tallest layer, where trees can be as tall as 200 feet, and rise well above the canopy. Here they are exposed to fluctuation of temperature, wind, and rainfall. The leaves are small and covered with a thick waxy surface to hold water. They take advantage of the wind by developing winged seeds that are blown to other parts of the forest. Trunks can be up to 16 feet around and braced by massive buttress roots. Some of the animals find everything they need to survive in the emergent layer and never leave it.
Living in the Amazon Rainforest are the tribal people or also known as Indigenous people.There are still over 200 indigenous groups in the Amazon Rainforest , talking 180 different languages and each with their own cultural heritage. If you narrow your view to language families you will still find 30 different language families in the Amazon rainforest. This shows that like the flora and fauna , the cultural diversity in the region is also very high, making it an even more interesting and rich place.
What is special about the Amazon?
- Firstly is the fact that it has the claim to fame of being the largest rainforest in the world and also home to a massive selection of wild life and creatures that live there and relatively large areas of it are unspoilt by humans which goes for less and less places around the world these days.
- It is also special as a great absorbed of carbon from the atmosphere and producer of oxygen, the combined effect of all the trees there being huge on regulating the level of oxygen in the atmosphere, though the level of oxygen in the atmosphere is steadily dropping from a high point millions of years ago.
Conservation of the Amazon
- Rehabilitation and increased productivity of formerly forested lands - To lessen future forest loss we must increase and sustain the productivity of farms, pastures, plantations, and scrub-land in addition to restoring species and ecosystems to degraded habitats. By reducing wasteful land-use practices, consolidating gains on existing cleared lands, and improving already developed lands we can diminish the need to clear additional rainforest.
- Expansion of protection area - The extension of protection to critically important habitats within the Amazon region is key to maximizing survival of biodiversity in Brazil.
- Sustainable Development - Perhaps the best way to address deforestation in Brazil is developing a new conservation policy based on the principle of sustainable use and development of rainforests. Sustainable development is a phrase that has been used regularly over the past decade, but critics will quickly tell you that collecting fruits, latex, and nuts from the rainforests is not enough make a living let alone support a growing economy. "Sustainable development" should considered an underlying philosophy to be applied via policy to various agents and industries involved in the use and development of rainforest lands and resources.
