As has been shown in basically all of the major news outlets, the Amazon Rainforest is on fire! I personally believe that this could be the wake-up call that Americans need in order to start caring about the environment. More than anything, I think this could be used as a great learning process for our Earth and the place, we as humans, inhabit on it. I think this is necessary because of the flippant way that some of the coverage is addressing this disaster. If you look at this post (Fox article), it is telling you that the rainforest is on fire, but the underlying assumption basically is, “so what?” Yes, you should be informed, but there isn’t any additional information about how this pertains to you. Without this, it might be hard for you to connect and really care, so let’s explore.

This will be the first of at least three posts pertaining to these blazes in the Amazon. We are going to discuss why the Amazon matters to you (looking at the average American), what is currently happening there (going into the specifics of the fires, deforestation, and the main reasons), and finally, what you can do about it.

So the Amazon is on fire and deforestation is ravaging the forest. Why should you care? How does the Amazon Rainforest affect you as the average American? Let me just share some of the facts about this amazing place to impress upon you the sheer magnitude of this vast expanse of forest: 

• The Amazon Rainforest is the largest forest in the world (3)
• The Amazon River Basin is close to 3 million square miles – in comparison, the continental US is 2.95 million square miles (3, 6)
• The Amazon is estimated to be home to 30% of the world’s species, including 40,000 different plant species; 16,000 tree species; 5,600 fish species; 1,300 bird species; over 430 mammal species; over 1,000 amphibian species; and 400 reptile species (2)

This is amazing to hear, but it still hasn’t gone to the heart of how this affects you apart from being a home to a wide-array of biodiversity. That’s great and all, obviously sloths and otters are cute, and you would prefer to have more animals in this world than not, but this doesn’t have anything to do with your day-to-day life. Let’s look at the three most important ways it directly affects you: oxygen vs. carbon dioxide; everyday commodities; and medicines.

Let’s first look at oxygen and carbon dioxide. Though this area seems to be the most quoted reason for saving the Amazon, this is probably the hardest point to back with solid data. I will quickly just give some overall information about this topic, but cannot give any specific statistics that are fully backed by data to give exact effects that losing the Amazon will have. There is a huge misunderstanding about the Amazon being the “Lungs of the World.” This statement is made because of the sheer magnitude of oxygen that the millions of square miles of trees produces. While 20% of the global oxygen is indeed produced in the Amazon, this is often conflated with it directly affecting our oxygen as Americans. Instead, the large plethora of animals within the Amazon basically use up this oxygen and the net is approximately zero output into the rest of the world, as is stated from PBS (7): “Even though plant photosynthesis is ultimately responsible for breathable oxygen, only a vanishingly tiny fraction of that plant growth actually adds to the store of oxygen in the air.” The oxygen content that we breathe is recirculated through plant material, but the actual content amount does not really change and hovers right around 21% (1). 

While oxygen’s content in the atmosphere does not change too much, carbon dioxide content has increased by over 33% since levels in 1940 (14). This mainly has to do with the vanishingly small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, it has been shown to have an unproportional impact to its small percentage. This means that no matter who you are, you should want less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and be pushing to do things that will keep extra amounts from being released. The powerful thing about plants is their use of photosynthesis, to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Trees, especially, are wonderful sequestration tools (they trap carbon dioxide within their bark, limbs, and roots). Each tree holds a different amount of carbon within it, but trees within the Amazon that have been around for decades at least can hold hundreds of pounds of carbon within them. While the majority of this carbon is re-released once it dies, it also can be captured by other plants using the tree as a type of fertilizer. More importantly, this carbon is re-released over a long time (as in years), unless they are burned as we are currently seeing, which releases this all at once (10). So while it is nearly impossible for the lay-person to determine how horrible cutting down or burning the trees of the Amazon is, it is making an impact on all of us by putting additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, both through releasing the carbon within the living trees, and taking away its power of removing some carbon dioxide from the surrounding atmosphere through photosynthesis.

These oxygen and carbon dioxide discussions are hard to quantify and connect directly with the average American, but needed to be discussed as they are still very important factors. Now let’s go to more concrete reasons to care about the Amazon Rainforest. We’ll now look at the plethora of commodities and woods that currently come from the Amazon, as well as the vast untapped resources that can only be open to us with sustainability in mind. 

It is amazing how many different items come from the Amazon that are used in our everyday lives. Below are just a sampling:

• • Chocolate, cashews, Brazil nuts, vanilla, coffee, avocados, rubber, bananas, spices such as cinnamon and pepper, acai berries, wide array of different types of wood and lumber (9, 12)
  • Other products that receive components for their finished products from the Amazon include moisturizers, shampoos, and aluminum (9, 13)

I would guess that almost every single American uses at least one of these products, if not many on any given day. Apart from all of these different commodities already used in daily life, there are many untapped resources food-wise that if approached sustainably, could certainly be added to our diets to improve both health and widen our horizons in tastes. Amazingly, there are over 3,000 different types of fruits – of which, only 200 are used in the Western World (12). 

This lack of knowledge of plants and fruits in the Amazon becomes even more important once we start looking into medicines. Currently, 121 different prescription drugs come from plant-derived sources and 25% of all Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients. This wide array of medicines has come all while only about 1% of the plants and trees have been tested by scientists. To show the realization of the future wealth that could be contained in the healing powers of the rainforest, there are currently over 100 pharmaceutical companies engaged in plant research projects looking for possible cures to viruses, infections, cancer, and even AIDS (12). One of the more interesting medicines I found that was derived from the Amazon is Captopril – used to combat chronic high blood pressure and hypertension – which was derived from snake venom (8).

As you should have grasped by now, even without looking at the issues related to climate change or oxygen and carbon dioxide content, the Amazon’s health directly impacts your daily life. In my next post, we will look into what the current status of the Amazon is, and why it really could use your help! In the meantime, you can still be as environmental as possible. Remember, tree hugging is accepted and does not make you a hippie, you need trees and they are as important to your well-being as anything else on this earth.

If you have any wish to learn more about plants and trees, check out (11) or (5) down below. Different medicines derived from the rainforest can be found at (4). Check out the rest of the bibliography to get a more robust knowledge of the Amazon.

1. Biello, David. “The Origin of Oxygen in Earth’s Atmosphere.” Scientific American, 19 Aug. 2009, www.scientificamerican.com/article/origin-of-oxygen-in-atmosphere/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.
2. Butler, Rhett A. “Animals of the Amazon Rainforest.” Mongabay, 1 Apr. 2019, rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_wildlife.html. Accessed 27 Aug. 2019.
3. Butler, Rhett A. “The Amazon Rainforest.” Mongabay.Com, 1 Apr. 2019, rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/. Accessed 27 Aug. 2019.
4. Carver, Caryn. “4 Medicines with Roots in the Rainforest.” Global Citizen, 27 Oct. 2015, www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/4-medicines-with-roots-in-the-rainforest/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.
5. Evans, Erv. “Tree Facts.” Ncsu.Edu, 2019, projects.ncsu.edu/project/treesofstrength/treefact.htm. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.
6. “Land Area in Square Miles.” U.S. Census Bureau, www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/map/US/LND110210. Accessed 27 Aug. 2019.
7. PBS NewsHour. “No, the Amazon Fires Won’t Deplete the Earth’s Oxygen Supply. Here’s Why.” PBS NewsHour, 26 Aug. 2019, www.pbs.org/newshour/science/no-the-amazon-fires-wont-deplete-the-earths-oxygen-supply-heres-why. Accessed 27 Aug. 2019.
8. Rainforest Trust. “Owed to Nature: Medicines from Tropical Forests – Rainforest Trust – Species | Communities | Planet.” Rainforest Trust – Species | Communities | Planet, 12 Sept. 2018, www.rainforesttrust.org/owed-to-nature-medicines-from-tropical-forests/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.
9. Save the Amazon Rainforest. “Amazon Rainforest Products – Save the Amazon Rainforest.” Save the Amazon Rainforest, 27 Mar. 2017, www.amazon-rainforest.org/amazon-products/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.
10. Schildgen, Bob. “How Much Carbon Do Trees Really Store?” Sierra Club, 21 May 2016, www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2016-2-march-april/ask-mr-green/how-much-carbon-do-trees-really-store. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.
11. Shanley, Patricia, and Food And Agriculture Organization Of The United Nations. Fruit Trees and Useful Plants in Amazonian Life. Rome, Italy, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2011.
12. Taylor, Leslie. “Facts and Information on the Amazon Rainforest.” Rain-Tree.Com, 2019, www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm. Accessed 27 Aug. 2019.
13. WWF UK. “Ten Products and Ingredients That Come from the Amazon. – WWF UK Blog.” WWF UK Blog, 6 Sept. 2016, blogs.wwf.org.uk/blog/business-government/green-economy/10-products-and-ingredients-that-come-from-the-amazon/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.
14. Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “CO2 Concentrations Hit Highest Levels in 3 Million Years.” Yale E360, 2019, e360.yale.edu/digest/co2-concentrations-hit-highest-levels-in-3-million-years. Accessed 28 Aug. 2019.