Pre-reading material Flashcards
Describe and explain the tropical rainforest distribution shown on page 1
- On or near Eqautor
- Largest concentration in S America (including Brazil)
- Also in Central Africa (DRC), SE Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia) and the NE of Australia.
- All within the tropics
- Location is due to the climate
- Hot temperatures
- High rainfall and constant humidity
- Little seasonal variation
- Long growing season
Why is it important to retain rainforests in Peru?
1) Biodiversity of plants, animals and insects. 60% of all are found here.
2) Medicines are sourced here
3) Account for a large percentage of the CO2 from the atmosphere
4) Current de-forestation accounts for 15% of the globe’s CO2 production.
5) 3 and 4 would have a big effect on global warming due to greenhouse gas effect.
6) Impacts countries like the maldives
Explain the need for road building in Peru
1) Relatively poor country with low GNI per capital
2) A high percentage of the population live in poverty, particularly in rural areas.
3) Poor transport links which restricts growth in the economy
4) Roads would create opportunities for trade and open up areas for industrial development and tourism
5) Roads would connect rural areas and increase export earnings
6) Improved trade would lead to a higher standard of living.
What is the carbon balance and why is it important?
- The level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- Impacted by number of trees AND number of trees burnt.
- Impacts global warming.
- Changes weather patterns (severe droughts and floods elsewhere) and sea levels due to ice caps melting.
Why does de-forestation not always help local people?
- Often projects are by big companies and often those from overseas.
- Money goes to companies and overseas
- Quite often it is illegal development
- Locals lose their current livelihoods so have to move
- No increase in money available to locals
Will roads help tourism?
- Possibly but not always and at a cost
- Roads will lead to deforestation and increase activity such as commercial farming, mining
- This destroys the beautiful areas that tourists would like to visit
- This reduces attractiveness
What are indigenous people?
The local people whose families have lived in the area for years. They survive off the forests with subsistence farming (small farming for their families), and the local plants and animals.
Human Development Index?
- An index to judge a countries development which is between 0 (least developed) and 1 (most developed)
- Life expectancy, education levels and income per head.
Commercial agriculture?
- Large scale agriculture run by big businesses.
- Includes growing palm oil, rubber trees, soya etc
Eco system
- Includes all biotic (living) and abiotic (non living) in an area.
Climate definition
Prevailing weather conditions that include temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation (rain, snow etc) and wind
Environmental impacts of de-forestation
- Biodiveristy can be massively impacted
- No trees to bind the soil together
- Rain runs off the land quickly taking nutrients and causing floods and landslides
- With no tree canopy to catch the rain, more water reaches the soil, reduces soil fertility
- Trees reduce CO2 levels
- Burning trees produces CO2 levels
- Global impact via climate change
Economic impacts of de-forestation
- Logging, farming and mining can creat jobs
- This creates money although not all of it goes into the local economy
- Reduces attractiveness of tourism
- Removed local peoples’ livelihoods since they live off the land.
Biodiversity impacts of de-forestation
- 60% of all plants, animals and insects live in tropical forests.
- Large proportion of species only reside in rainforests.
- Removing habitats can lead to distinction.
- All species reliant on other species to survive
- ## Number of endangered species have increased over the last 30 years
