Melinda Sanchez

Ms.Harris

AP Seminar 7

8 March 2019

Amazon Deforestation

What does the environmental effects of deforestation in the Amazon suggest about a need for

law regulations.

Law regulations should be made to decrease the rate of deforestation in the Amazon due to laws

preventing biodiversity loss, climate change, as well as disruption in the water cycle.

Deforestation has many impacts on the environment, one being the drastic change in the

climate of the Amazon. According to ​ Kendra Gotangco​ and ​Kevin Gurney​ from Department of

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences “In the Amazon, ground temperature increase due to

biophysical feedbacks is as much as 55%, and precipitation decrease up to 61%, of combined

biophysical and carbon impacts.” (​Gotangco​, ​Gurney​) Due to deforestation leading to a reduction

of rainfall, this causes an increase in surface temperature. Deforestation emits carbon dioxide

into the atmosphere, the and is one of the leading causes to global warming. According to the

authors of Impacts of Climate Change and the End of Deforestation on Land Use in the Brazilian

Legal Amazon with resources from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, “Brazilian

government made a formal announcement within the United Nations climate treaty framework of

reducing Amazon deforestation by 80% compared to the historical rate of 19 500 km2 yr21 by

2020 (Government of Brazil 2008; Nepstad et al. 2009).” Overtime regulations have been made
in order to preserve trees and reduce deforestation in the Amazon. These regulations have been

proven to show a decrease in the rate of deforestation. Studies have shown that with this decrease

in deforestation there has been a deduction in the rising temperatures as well. Authors of The

End of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon with resources from American Association for the

Advancement of Science state, “According to our analysis, these recent developments finally

make feasible the end of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which could result in a 2 to 5%

reduction​ in global carbon emissions.” Developments such as the United Nations climate treaty

negotiations in​ 2008 of an Amazon deforestation reduction target have been steps toward

reducing deforestation problems. Although laws made failed to be monitored and enforced by

governments, partnerships have been made as a solution. Suhyun Jung from School for

Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan and Stephen Polasky who works at

Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, have studied these partnerships and

conclude that “empirical results show that the impacts of the project were greater on smaller

properties that are more likely to be credit-constrained, and on properties initially not in

compliance with Brazil's Forest Code that faced binding constraints on deforestation.” (Jung,

Polasky) Studies show that private firms and non governmental organizations lower

deforestation rates in properties enrolled to the project.