essay about the amazon rainforest

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How large is the Amazon Rainforest?

How many species does the amazon rainforest contain, how quickly is the amazon rainforest in brazil being deforested.

• Where is the Amazon River located?
• How long is the Amazon River?

Amazon Rainforest

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• World Wide Fund for Nature - Amazon rainforest
• Pennsylvania State University - College of Earth and Mineral Sciences - The Amazon Rainforest
• Nature - Pronounced loss of Amazon rainforest resilience since the early 2000s
• Amazon Rainforest - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

The Amazon Rainforest stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the tree line of the Andes in the west. The forest widens from a 200-mile (320-km) front along the Atlantic to a belt 1,200 miles (1,900 km) wide at the Andean foothills. Brazil holds approximately 60 percent of the Amazon within its borders.

The Amazon Rainforest is the world’s richest and most-varied biological reservoir, containing several million species of insects , plants , birds , and other forms of life , many still unrecorded by science . The luxuriant vegetation encompasses a wide variety of trees. Major wildlife includes jaguars , manatees , tapirs , capybaras and other rodents , and several types of monkeys .

Brazilians have settled large portions of the Amazon, clearing the land for lumbering , grazing, and agriculture . Between 1970 and 2016, Brazilian Amazon forest cover declined from some 1,583,000 square miles to about 1,283,000 square miles. However, conservation slowed forest loss to roughly 0.1–0.2 percent per year between 2008 and 2016.

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Amazon Rainforest , large tropical rainforest occupying the drainage basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries in northern South America and covering an area of 2,300,000 square miles (6,000,000 square km). Comprising about 40 percent of Brazil ’s total area, it is bounded by the Guiana Highlands to the north, the Andes Mountains to the west, the Brazilian central plateau to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

A brief treatment of the Amazon Rainforest follows. For full treatment, see South America: Amazon River basin .

Amazonia is the largest river basin in the world, and its forest stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the tree line of the Andes in the west. The forest widens from a 200-mile (320-km) front along the Atlantic to a belt 1,200 miles (1,900 km) wide where the lowlands meet the Andean foothills. The immense extent and great continuity of this rainforest is a reflection of the high rainfall , high humidity , and monotonously high temperatures that prevail in the region.

The Amazon Rainforest is the world’s richest and most-varied biological reservoir, containing several million species of insects , plants , birds , and other forms of life , many still unrecorded by science . The luxuriant vegetation encompasses a wide variety of trees , including many species of myrtle , laurel , palm , and acacia , as well as rosewood , Brazil nut , and rubber tree. Excellent timber is furnished by the mahogany and the Amazonian cedar. Major wildlife includes jaguar , manatee , tapir , red deer , capybara and many other types of rodents , and several types of monkeys .

In the 20th century, Brazil’s rapidly growing population settled major areas of the Amazon Rainforest. The size of the Amazon forest shrank dramatically as a result of settlers’ clearance of the land to obtain lumber and to create grazing pastures and farmland. Brazil holds approximately 60 percent of the Amazon basin within its borders, and some 1,583,000 square miles (4,100,000 square km) of this was covered by forests in 1970. The amount of forest cover declined to some 1,283,000 square miles (3,323,000 square km) by 2016, about 81 percent of the area that had been covered by forests in 1970. In the 1990s the Brazilian government and various international bodies began efforts to protect parts of the forest from human encroachment, exploitation, deforestation , and other forms of destruction. Although Brazil’s Amazon continues to lose forest cover, the pace of this loss declined from roughly 0.4 percent per year during the 1980s and ’90s to roughly 0.1–0.2 percent per year between 2008 and 2016. However, some 75,000 fires occurred in the Brazilian Amazon during the first half of 2019 (an increase of 85 percent over 2018), largely due to encouragement from Brazilian Pres. Jair Bolsonaro , a strong proponent of tree clearing.

In 2007 Ecuador initiated a unique plan to preserve a portion of the forest within its borders, which lies in Yasuní National Park (established 1979), one of the world’s most biodiverse regions: the Ecuadoran government agreed to forgo development of heavy oil deposits (worth an estimated $7.2 billion) beneath the Yasuní rainforest if other countries and private donors contributed half of the deposits’ value to a UN-administered trust fund for Ecuador. In 2013, however, Ecuador abandoned the plan, after only $6.5 million had been raised by the end of 2012. By 2016 the state oil company Petroecuador had begun to drill and extract petroleum from the park.

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The Amazon Rainforest: Essay Example

The amazon rainforest: essay introduction, the importance of the amazon rainforest: essay body paragraph, the facts about the amazon rainforest: essay body paragraph.

The Amazon rainforest, the largest rainforest on Earth, encompasses an area roughly the size of the United States (the 48 contiguous states), contains most of the plant and animal species found on the planet and contributes to weather patterns on a global scale.

This natural wonder is disappearing at an alarming rate due to deforestation and with it the animals, plants and eventually humans will disappear as well. This applies to all plants, animals and humans, not just those who inhabit this region of South America.

If the Amazon rainforest disappears, the entire human race will likely suffer the same fate resulting from the climatic changes that would result. This disturbing scenario has been well documented by environmental organizations, governmental studies, independent agency reviews and scientific journals spanning the past three decades from which this discussion will draw.

The Amazon rainforest represents close to half of the world’s rainforest regions. Estimates of its size vary but the general consensus is that the Amazon rainforest covers approximately seven million square kilometers. It represents 40 per cent of the South American continent encroaching on nine of its countries including Brazil, Suriname, Bolivia, Guyana, French Guyana, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela.

The greatest portion (62 per cent) lies within the boundaries of Brazil. This massive area, if a single country, would rank sixth largest in the world and is at least half the size of the entire European continent. (Amazon Life, 1998)

The seemingly boundless rainforest is shrinking at a rapid pace due to deforestation, however, which will soon result in grave consequences for both the region and the planet. “Land-use conversion is occurring at unprecedented scales and in a complex manner.

As in other humid tropical forest regions worldwide, negative consequences include losses of biological and cultural diversity, changes in the regional and potentially global climate, and an increase in social conflicts.” (Kommers, 2007)

Deforestation describes the removal of trees along with other types of vegetation. Since 1970, at least 20 per cent of Amazon rainforest has been lost from deforestation. This figure could be under-representative because it does not include trees that have been felled by selective logging techniques which are less noticeable than clear-cutting yet causes considerable harm.

Ecologists and scientists warn that another 20 per cent will be lost within the next 20 years. If this were to occur, the ecological system that sustains the forest and thus the planet’s weather patterns will start to disintegrate. At present, the Amazon rainforest generates half of the rainfall it consumes but the removal of an additional 20 per cent will impede this phenomenon to the point where much of the remaining forest will die from lack of moisture.

The rising temperature of the Earth, due to global warming, will exacerbate the situation and cause droughts which will lead to massive wildfires in the region. Instead of life-giving oxygen which is now furnished by the lush rainforests, the fires will expel great amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Given this very real and impending scenario, it is difficult to imagine how the human race along with all other life on earth could continue to live. Today, the greenhouse gases emitted from Brazil ranks near the world’s top polluter, the U.S., because of the slash-and-burn techniques used to clear the rainforest. “The danger signs are undeniable.” (Wallace, 2006)

Simply stated, if immediate action is not taken to reverse the present trend of deforestation, the immense Amazon rainforest will soon become a desert region not unlike the Sahara in Africa. Once this process is underway, the effects are irreversible. Some scientists believe the transformation from forest to desert could begin as early as this year.

Studies have determined that the Amazon rainforest, even in its current state, could not withstand three years of drought conditions without beginning the irrevocable path to becoming the Amazon desert.

This result, in and of itself, is tragic enough but the repercussions to the rest of the world would be as catastrophic. “Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable.” (Lean, Pearce, 2006)

The Amazon rainforest has been characterized as the ‘lungs of the world.’ It is astonishing that though people know that without trees, they are without oxygen, the trees keep falling at increasingly larger rates. Trees are a resource that can be replenished if cutting is managed properly yet this has been anything but the case in the Amazon.

The collective rainforests of the world act as a climatic sponge storing much of the world’s rainwater, of which the Amazon rainforest accounts for more than half. Trees in the rainforest recycle water drawn from the forest ground.

This, combined with the moisture that evaporates from the leaves is released into the atmosphere from whence it came. If not for this enormous amount of rainwater supplied by rainforests, rivers, lakes and land masses would essentially dry-up spawning droughts of epic proportions. Irrigation farming would be greatly curtailed. Disease, starvation and famine on a worldwide scale will be the direct result of deforestation.

Trees cleanse the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and providing oxygen. Burning trees in the rainforest increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and at the same time reduces the amount of trees needed to absorb it. This contributes to global warming, a phenomenon which is already threatening the survival of the planet. (“Why” 2007)

There are further, often less publicized, repercussions of the Amazon rainforest’s deforestation. As trees are removed from the rainforest, soil erosion becomes an increasing concern. The nutrients needed for the tree’s roots to thrive are contained in a rainforest soil that is surprisingly lacking in nutrients.

The bulk of the nutrients are stored within the massive number of trees whose collective canopies protect the rainforest soil from the torrential downpours that would otherwise wash the soil away eventually allowing the rivers to flood low lying areas. The mass clearing of trees is the obvious threat to soil erosion but selective cutting is too.

The soil does need some nutrients in order to hold the tree’s roots firmly which it gains when trees die and decay on the ground. Fewer numbers of trees to feed the soil will lead to lower quality soil thus fewer trees still, a process that is essentially irreversible. The rain forest is also home to indigenous tribes, many who have become extinct in the past three decades.

Some have estimated that more than 100 entire tribes have been lost in recent years. After living harmoniously with nature for untold thousands of years, deforestation has deprived these indigenous peoples of the land which provided them housing, food and medications. Many were killed by the diseases brought in by the loggers or outright while attempting to protect their homes.

Medicines that originate from rainforest plants are not only important to the indigenous tribes but to the rest of the world population as well. More than a quarter of contemporary medications were derived from rainforest plants but only one percent of these plants have been tapped for their medicinal value.

Therefore, the potential for life-saving medicines yet discovered is tremendous. “Rainforests and the native populations who discovered these medicines could hold the cure of many more diseases if we would only nurture the forests and allow their people to show us.” (“Why” 2007)

Loggers do not wish for the rainforests to vanish, if for no other reason, because their livelihoods depends on it. They claim the world would have to stop using wood for the demand to diminish. The demand, not the supply is destroying the rainforest. In addition, if this unlikely scenario were to happen, commercial ranchers, tribesmen and miners would continue to clear trees at an enormous rate.

The ever-expansive soybean farms and wealth of precious metals in the region assure the continued deforestation with or without the presence of loggers. The various South American governments’ position is similar to the loggers in that they do not wish the rainforest to be destroyed because of the financial hardship it would cause.

This stance is eerily similar to the U.S. position on global warming, that to tackle the problem would not be economically feasible. Both seem to be quite content to sacrifice the future of the planet’s inhabitants for short-term political or economic gains. Environmentalists cite previously mentioned catastrophic global concerns and the tribes’ people lament the destruction of their beautiful and exotic homeland. (Taylor, 2004)

The proliferation of soy bean farming has negatively impacted the Amazon rainforest. The soy farmers hold much influence in South American countries’ governments. Beyond the massive clearing of trees to provide more farmland, the soy farmers continually persuade government officials to expand roadways which allow more of those with both legitimate and illegal commercial concerns access to increasing larger amounts of rainforest areas.

As in logging, the blame can largely be pointed at the demand-side. For example, multinational food chains Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds have been criticized for “underwriting deforestation in the Amazon through its purchase of soy-based animal derived from soybeans grown in the Amazon Basin.” (Deforestation rate, 2006)

Environment Secretary David Miliband proposed offering sections of the Amazon rainforest to be sold to private individuals, associations and businesses for strictly preservation purposes. This would compensate the governments and stop the deforestation, at least in those regions. The Brazilian government quickly dismissed the proposal citing the possible undermining of its autonomy.

Brazil is implementing a monitoring scheme to track illegal logging which it contends will slow the destruction of forests. However, these 150 new government employees will be greatly susceptible to corruptive tactics used by logging companies. (Kage, 2007)

Though selective logging is damaging to the rainforest, this technique is less damaging than clear-cutting. “If the forest is not too heavily disturbed during the logging, rates of re-growth and carbon accumulation can be quite rapid following a clearing.” (Wolfe, 2003) However, this can only be a temporary solution because partially cleared forests are no substitute for untouched forests, ecologically speaking.

Local governments of the Amazon region have been less than helpful in curbing the destruction of the rainforests. In fact, not only has few, if any, resolutions to the problem emanated from local authorities, many have actively thwarted attempts to save it.

Local authorities often act in conjunction with drug cartels (gangs) and ranchers who profit from the clearing of rainforests. Because of the impoverished conditions which rampant throughout the region, corruption also runs rampant. The governments of the region cannot be counted on to improve conditions now or in the future. The only viable method of preserving the rainforests is to appeal to the economic realities of the region.

More prosperous countries should, one, stop buying from companies that exploit the rainforest’s resources and two, employ Miliband’s privatization plan. Saving the Amazon rainforest is a good idea whether or not its destruction would also likely kill most everything on earth.

Even if all the scientists, environmentalists, government and scholarly studies were proved 100 percent wrong and nothing outside a few desolate tribes, some frogs, snakes and birds would notice if the rainforest was transformed into desert, it would still be worth saving at any cost due to its beauty, uniqueness and numbers of species and medicinal potential. Much as the global warming issue, whose destiny is tied to deforestation, even if climate change due to carbon monoxide emissions were proved a myth, reducing air pollution still makes sense.

“Amazon deforestation rate plunges 41 percent.” (October 26, 2006). Mongabay.com.

Kage, Ben. (January 19, 2007). “Brazilian government authorizes controlled logging in Amazon rain forest.” News Target.com.

Kommers, Nate. (2007). “Maps Show Diverse, Widespread Human Pressures on Brazilian Amazon Forests.” Press Release. World Resources Institute .

Lean, Geoffrey & Pearce, Fred. (July 23, 2006). “Amazon rainforest could become a desert.” The Independent.

Taylor, Elizabeth. (June 10, 2004). “Why are the Rainforests being destroyed? Are loggers the real problem?”

ThinkQuest Team. (1998). Amazon Life.

Wallace, Scott. (December 15, 2006). “Brazil’s Dilemma: Allow widespread – and profitable – destruction of the rain forest to continue, or intensify conservation efforts.” National Geographic.

“Why are the Rainforests Important?” (2007). R ain Forest Concern .

Wolfe, Jason. (January 21, 2003). “ The Road to Recovery .” Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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What is the importance Of Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Basin is considered to contain the largest rainforest as “Amazon rainforest” in the world. This amounts to more than sixty percentage of the remaining rainforest of the world. The Amazon Rainforest spans over an extensive area of around 2 million miles that stretches across 9 South American nations that includes Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Bolivia, French Guiana, and Suriname.

This rainforest is renowned as a vast collection of ecological services for local communities, and tribes and the world. The Amazon rainforest, is closely linked with global warming, nature and several other environmental conditions. Let us learn about its significance in detail.

Impact of Amazon rainforest

Biodiversity: This lush green region has around five hundred indigenous communities that are greatly benefitted by this forest. Being a biodiverse ecosystem, Amazon rainforest is home to several unknown species of animals , and plants. They play a vital role in preserving the health of the rainforest as well as influence the environment of the world.

From poison frogs to jaguars, the Amazon rainforest houses the most fascinating animals and plants in the world. Around ten percentage of the species in the world are contained in the forest. There are around 2.5 million varieties of insects, 1,300 species of birds, 3,000 varieties of fish and around 415 species of mammals that impacts the weather all across the world.

Impacts the weather and climate of the globe: The plants in the Amazon rainforest influences climate, and weather in the world. They help play an exemplary role in regulating the ecology of a place. These plants photosynthesize, and create a suitable weather for the survival of living beings on the planet. As a result of the transpiration process, plants produce water vapor from its pores. The entry of moisture helps in planting cloud bands that locks the water in the forest and flows into river and supply communities. In this way, transpiration process helps in sustaining life on the Earth.

With the phenomenon, the Amazon rainforest creates 50 percentage to 75 percentage of precipitation. Transpiration greatly impacts weather throughout the Amazon. When the rain falls all over this forest, then warm air raises into the atmosphere. In this way, it pulls greater amount of moisture from the ocean that are located thousands of acres away. Water that gets released by these plants in the atmosphere via evapotranspiration mechanism (a combination of evaporation and transpiration) to the ocean, sustains the climate of the world and assist in better flow of ocean currents.

Medicinal uses: More than forty thousand species of species of plant, and herbs are found in this rainforest. A majority of them are touted for their medical uses, food and income generation. These potent herbs and plant species are capable of treating a wide range of ailments naturally. Rubber, vanilla, pepper, cinnamon, coffee, and chocolate are cultivated in this rainforest. All these trees are a good way to generate income for native communities that lives in the rainforest.

Reduces Pollution: There are around 389 billion trees spread across the Amazon Rainforest. They benefit the environment by cleaning and recycling the destructive carbon dioxide output. Plants absorb carbon di oxide from the air in their trunk, leaves and branches, and release oxygen. In this way, by photosynthesis, it takes away CO2 from the air and reduces pollution. Tropical rainforests are also seen to reduce the impact of the greenhouse effect, and the change in climate that when ignored can worse the atmosphere in the future.

As an estimate the forest has the ability to store around 85 billion tons of carbon. When these forests get burned, then more carbon matter get released as of CO2. Without conversion of this carbon to oxygen , the levels of carbon rise in the atmosphere. This excess amounts of carbon in turn pollutes the atmosphere. In addition to industrial pollution, widespread cutting of trees in South America has substantially increased the levels of CO2 in the entire atmosphere.

The Amazon River: Within the Amazon Basin, lies the 2nd longest river “Amazon River” in the world after the Nile River. This winding waterways spans the area of approx. 4,000 miles. It is enclosed by rich and dense wetlands. This winding river also comprises of several numerous species, that includes pancake stingrays, bellied piranha, caiman crocodiles, river dolphin, and bull sharks.

This river serves as a major means of transportation to local people. A large number of fishes in the river are a good source of protein for people. Flood in the river refills nutrient in the plains and are used for Agriculture.

Regulates Oxygen, and Carbon Cycle: Another important benefit of the Amazon rainforest is that it works remarkably in regulating the carbon and oxygen cycles in the world. This forest secretes around 6 percentage of the oxygen in the world, and absorbs massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.

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Cultural significance of traditional ceremonies in indigenous communities of the amazon rainforest, why cattle ranching is the main cause of deforestation in the amazon rainforest., popular essay topics.

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Deep in Amazon rainforest lives a community whose hearts age more slowly

Tsimanes are constantly active - hunting animals, planting food and weaving roofs.

• The Tsimanes are a rarity. They are one of the last peoples on the planet to live a fully subsistence lifestyle of hunting, foraging and farming.

• The group is also large enough to provide a sizeable scientific sample, and researchers, led by anthropologist Hillard Kaplan of the University of New Mexico, have studied it for two decades.

As Martina Canchi Nate walks through the Bolivian jungle, red butterflies fluttering around her, we have to ask her to pause - our team can’t keep up.

Her ID card shows she’s 84, but within 10 minutes, she digs up three yucca trees to extract the tubers from the roots, and with just two strokes of her knife, cuts down a plantain tree.

She slings a huge bunch of the fruit on her back and begins the walk home from her chaco - the patch of land where she grows cassava, corn, plantains and rice.

Martina is one of 16,000 Tsimanes (pronounced “chee-may-nay") - a semi-nomadic indigenous community living deep in the Amazon rainforest, 600km (375 miles) north of Bolivia’s largest city, La Paz.

Her vigour is not unusual for Tsimanes of her age. Scientists have concluded the group has the healthiest arteries ever studied, and that their brains age more slowly than those of people in North America, Europe and elsewhere.

The Tsimanes are a rarity. They are one of the last peoples on the planet to live a fully subsistence lifestyle of hunting, foraging and farming. The group is also large enough to provide a sizeable scientific sample, and researchers, led by anthropologist Hillard Kaplan of the University of New Mexico, have studied it for two decades.

Less than 10% of their daylight hours are spent in sedentary activities, compared with 54% in industrial populations. An average hunt, for example, lasts more than eight hours and covers 18km.

They live on the Maniqui River, approximately 100km by boat from the nearest town, and have had little access to processed foods, alcohol and cigarettes.

The researchers found that only 14% of the calories they eat are from fat, compared with 34% in the US. Their foods are high in fibre and 72% of their calories come from carbohydrates, compared with 52% in the US.

Proteins come from animals they hunt, such as birds, monkeys and fish. When it comes to cooking, traditionally, there is no frying.

The initial work of Prof Kaplan and his colleague, Michael Gurven of the University of California, Santa Barbara, was anthropological. But they noticed the elderly Tsimanes did not show signs of diseases typical of old age such as hypertension, diabetes or heart problems.

Then a study published in 2013 caught their attention. A team led by US cardiologist Randall C Thompson used CT scanning to examine 137 mummies from ancient Egyptian, Inca and Unangan civilisations.

As humans age, a build-up of fats, cholesterol and other substances can make arteries thicken or harden, causing atherosclerosis. They found signs of this in 47 of the mummies, challenging assumptions that it is caused by modern lifestyles.

The two research teams joined forces and carried out CT scans on 705 Tsimanes over the age of 40, looking for coronary artery calcium (CAC) - a sign of clogged-up blood vessels and risk of a heart attack.

Their study, first published in The Lancet in 2017, showed 65% of the Tsimanes over 75 had no CAC. In comparison, most Americans of that age (80%) do have signs of it.

As Kaplan puts it: “A 75-year-old Tsimane's arteries are more like a 50-year-old American's arteries.”

A second phase, published in 2023   in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, found elderly Tsimanes showed up to 70% less brain atrophy than people of the same age in industrialised countries such as the UK, Japan and the US.

“We found zero cases of Alzheimer's among the entire adult population - it is remarkable,” Bolivian doctor Daniel Eid Rodríguez, a medical co-ordinator for the researchers, tells us.

Working out the ages of the Tsimanes is not an exact science, however. Some have difficulty counting, as they have not been taught numbers well. They told us they are guided by records of Christian missions in the area or by how long they have known each other. The scientists do calculations based on the ages of a person’s children.

According to their records, Hilda is 81, but she says recently her family killed a pig to celebrate her “100th birthday or something like that”.

Juan, who says he is 78, takes us out hunting. His hair is dark, his eyes lively and his hands muscular and firm. We watch as he stalks a small taitetú - a hairy, wild pig - which manages to sneak away through the foliage and escape.

He admits he does feel his age: “Now the most difficult thing is my body. I don’t walk far any more… it will be two days at most.”

Martina agrees. Tsimane women are known for weaving roofs from jatata, a plant that grows deep in the jungle. To find it, Martina must walk for three hours there and three hours back, carrying the branches on her back.

“I do it once or twice a month, although now it's harder for me,” she says.

Many Tsimanes never reach old age, though. When the study began, their average life expectancy was barely 45 years - now it’s risen to 50.

At the clinic where the scans take place, Dr Eid asks the elderly woman about their families as they prepare to be examined.

Counting on her fingers, one woman says sadly that she had six children, of which five died. Another says she had 12, of which four died - one more says she has nine children still alive, but another three died.

“These people who reach the age of 80 were the ones who managed to survive a childhood full of diseases and infections,” says Dr Eid.

The researchers believe all the Tsimanes have experienced some sort of infection by parasites or worms during their lifetimes. They also found high levels of pathogens and inflammation, suggesting the Tsimanes’ bodies were constantly fighting infections.

This has led them to wonder whether these early infections could be another factor - in addition to diet and exercise - behind the health of the elderly Tsimanes.

The community’s lifestyle is, however, changing.

Juan says he has not been able to hunt a large enough animal in months. A series of forest fires at the end of 2023 destroyed nearly two million hectares of jungle and forest.

"The fire made the animals leave,” he says.

He has now begun raising livestock and shows us four beef steers he hopes will provide protein for the family later this year.

Dr Eid says the use of boats with an outboard motor - known as peque-peque - is also bringing change. It makes markets easier to reach, giving the Tsimane access to foods such as sugar, flour and oil.

And he points out that it means they are rowing less than before - “one of the most demanding physical activities”.

Twenty years ago, there were barely any cases of diabetes. Now they are beginning to appear, while cholesterol levels have also begun to increase among the younger population, the researchers have found.

“Any small change in their habits ends up affecting these health indices,” says Dr Eid.

And the researchers themselves have had an impact over their 20 years of involvement - arranging better access to healthcare for the Tsimanes, from cataract operations to treatment for broken bones and snake bites.

But for Hilda, old age is not something to be taken too seriously. “I'm not afraid of dying,” she tells us with a laugh, “because they're going to bury me and I'm going to stay there… very still."

Peru environmentalist who fought for Amazon shot dead

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Amazon rainforest faces troubling new phenomenon as water levels drop: 'One of the most severe droughts in recent years'

The drought outlook is dire for the Amazon region, and several of its rivers were already critically low by early August for this time of year, the Associated Press reported .

What's happening?

Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), the intergovernmental organization that includes eight Amazonian countries, reported per the AP that Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia are among the countries most impacted by very low river levels, which have been historically low in some places.

"The Amazon Basin is facing one of the most severe droughts in recent years in 2024, with significant impacts on several member countries," the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization shared in a technical report, per the Associated Press.

This is the second year in a row the Amazon basin has experienced a severe drought. The dry conditions contributed to the highest number of fires in the Amazon rainforest from January through July in nearly 20 years, Reuters reported . During July, satellites detected more than 11,000 fire hotspots.

Why is a drought in the Amazon so important?

Scientists say there is a link between our planet's health and the health of the Amazon, as Mongabay reports. Carbon is an element in carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas warming our world. The Amazon rainforest is estimated to contain 150 billion to 200 billion tons of carbon, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and more than half of the world's remaining tropical rainforest, per National Geographic. Functioning normally, it is an important carbon sink, a natural absorber that holds more carbon than it releases.

The massive Amazon biome, which is twice the size of India (again, per the WWF), contains around 1.4 billion acres of dense forests and spreads into several countries, including Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Suriname, and the French territory French Guiana. The Amazon rainforest is home to over 10% of the world's species and holds around 20% of the world's liquid freshwater.

Watch now: Mutual of Omaha brand leader shares details on resurrection of iconic TV show

What's being done about the amazon drought.

ACTO has a "shared vision of the integrated and sustainable management of Amazonian water resources," according to the organization. ACTO's Strategic Action Program includes plans for a regional system to monitor water quality, developing a program for the protection and use of groundwater for public use, and creating forecast and warning systems for extreme hydroclimatic events.

Since our overheating planet is making droughts longer , more frequent, and more intense, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, reducing our reliance on dirty energy is crucial. It will take new policies to help with this goal, so voting for pro-climate candidates is essential. Donating money to causes that want to protect our climate and supporting eco-friendly brands are ways we can all help.

Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips , and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.

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