The Amazon Basin and Land-Cover Change: A Future in the Balance?

The Amazon Basin contains a multitude of ecosystems, biological and ethnic diversity and the largest extent of tropical forest on Earth, over 5 x 106 km2, and accounts for an estimated 1/3 of the planet’s animal and plant species. Currently only a small number of species are used by man. The region is abundant in water resources. Annual rainfall is 2.3 m over the Amazon Basin, and the mean outflow of the Amazon River into the Atlantic is over 200 000 m3 s-1, which corresponds to 18% of the total flow of fresh water into the world’s oceans. The region stores over 100 Gt of carbon in vegetation and soils. However, over the past 30 years, rapid development has led to the deforestation of over 550 000 km2 in Brazil alone. Current rates of annual deforestation are in the range of 15 000 km2 to 20 000 km2 (INPE 2001), and the spatial pattern of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia up to 1997 is illustrated in Fig. 26.1.