Page 172 - INSPERIA-School Magazine TIGPSKON 2021.indd

BURNING

LUNGS

ire!! fire!! Save us!! save us!! …..What a painful
screaming! But where is fire? Yes, there are fires in
Four lungs!! ......Amazon Rainforest.....
The Rainforest has vast region that spans eight rapidly
developing countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador,
Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French
Guiana with 1.4 billion acres of dense forests and 2.6
million square miles of the Amazon river basin .This is the
biggest homeland of about 2.5 million insect species, at
least 40,000 plant species, 2,000 birds , 2,200 fishes,427
mammals, 428 amphibian and 378 reptiles species. It
produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen. More than
30 million people, including 350 Indigenous and ethnic
groups, live in the Amazon and depend on nature for
to the presence of other greenhouse gases and doubling
agriculture, clothing, and traditional medicines.
concentration of CO2 which could accelerate global
warming. In recent times, warmer temperatures and less
rainfall have produced droughts of historic proportions.
The Amazon suffered its worst droughts of the last
100 years in 2005 and 2010.Long dry spells wither
crops, declimate fisheries and lead to forest fires. Cattle
pastures occupy 80 percent of deforested areas in the
Amazon. Pasture runoff contaminates rivers. Fire used
to manage fields often spreads into the remaining forests.
The deforestation caused by ranching also contributes to
climate change, releasing 340 million tons of carbon into
the atmosphere every year. So, the risk of devastating forest
fires is increasing. Thus, an unprecedented number of fires
raged throughout Brazil in 2019, intensifying in August.
These vast forests release oxygen and store carbon The country’s National Institute for Space Research
dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that is a major cause of loss (INPE) reported that there were more than 80,000 fires,
of biodiversity and creates many incurable diseases. Due the most that it had ever recorded. Only 2019 forest fire
172 Techno India Group Public School