AMAZON- The Lungs of Our Planet

Our planet is under a threat of losing the 20% of oxygen that comes from the Amazon. The tree cover (68% in Brazil) captures 150-200 billions tons of CO2 a day and because of evaporation, creates its own clouds and rain system and therefore puts 20 billion tons of water into the atmosphere every day.

The Amazon is so big covering 1% of the earth’s surface and the river is 5 times larger than any other river on Earth (its 12 times the size of the Mississippi) and has an additional 1100 tributaries.

With all of the deforestation, there are 390 billion trees (16,000 species) under threat as the land has been cleared. In addition, there are: 2.5 million species of insects, 1400 species of butterflies, 430 species of animals (10% of the Worlds wildlife, some very dangerous like anacondas and poisonous frogs) and 1300 species of birds! The Amazon has 25% of the Earths biodiversity. The chemicals, wood and plants here are used worldwide and are used to create new medicines all the time with new plants that are continuously discovered.

The population of people in the Amazon is 47 million (350 different ethnic groups) with 1.6 million being indigenous tribal people that have never had contact with outsiders but live in harmony with the environment here.Leia mais