South America's Amazon - Sink for human emissions of carbon dioxide

South America's Amazon contains about a third of all the tropical rainforests left on earth. It covers about 1 percent of the earth's surface. According to scientific data, approximately every 3 days a 'new' specie is discovered. The Amazon covers a vast amount of land from Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

Human activity has removed more than one-tenth of trees and plants from the Amazon forest since the mid twentieth century. According to scientists trees play a significant part in reducing global warming as they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in order to grow. By this natural precess greenhouse gas levels are reduced naturally from the atmosphere. Adding to the vital significance, the Amazon forest is the world's largest store of biodiversity. Currently, it is believed that around one quarter of all terrestrial species are found throughout the Amazon.

The Amazon represents a major sink for human emissions of carbon dioxide, currently absorbing about two billion tons per year. This process is vital to the health of our planet and all species. But the Amazon faces serious challenges as we move into a more uncertain future. Scientists are uncertain how the rise in global temperature will harm the Amazon. A broad range of climate changes are projected, associated in part with uncertainty in how the tropical pacific and Atlantic sea-surface temperatures will respond in the future and how this will influence regional rainfall patterns. Reliable and stable rain patterns are vital to the existence of the Amazon and any disruption can potentially reduce the tremendous species diversity as well as the intake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The Amazon is also under attacks by the the dangers of fire and deforestations. As world populations are growing the demand for wood continues to rise. Despite all the regulations to preserve the Amazon forest people are still cutting trees to sell to foreign companies. Each year people cut thousands of trees and make profits of of them. But deforestation is not the only challenge as wild fires pose a serious problem. With recent droughts, in the region, hundreds of acres have been burned and this has harmed thousands of species as well as the environment.