The Amazon rainforest,alternatively, the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaftropicalrainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km2 (2,700,000 sq mi), of which 5,500,000 km2 (2,100,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The share of the nations are as follows : Nine countries share the Amazon basin—most of the rainforest, 58.4%, is
contained within the borders of Brazil. The other eight countries
include Peru with 12.8%, Bolivia with 7.7%, Colombia with 7.1%,
Venezuela with 6.1%, Guyana with 3.1%, Suriname with 2.5%, French Guyana
with 1.4%, and Ecuador with 1%.There are some reasons or facts behind the growth of this enormous rainforest. Obviously the river of Amazon is one of the biggest reason. The climate of the area is also one of them. But there is another thing, that is very responsible for the growth of the forest - the dust of Sahara dessert. More than 56% of the dust fertilizing the Amazon rainforest comes from the Bodélé depression in Northern Chad in the Sahara desert. The dust contains phosphorus,
important for plant growth. The yearly Sahara dust replaces the
equivalent amount of phosphorus washed away yearly in Amazon soil from
rains and floods. The Amazon rainforest is full of bio-diversity. It is infact the largest and most bio-diversed tract of tropical rainforest.
Rainforest from top (Brazil)
Based on archaeological evidence from an excavation at Caverna da Pedra Pintada, human inhabitants first settled in the Amazon region at least 11,200 years ago. Subsequent development led to late-prehistoric settlements along the
periphery of the forest by AD 1250, which induced alterations in the forest cover. For a long time, it was thought that the Amazon rainforest was never
more than sparsely populated, as it was impossible to sustain a large
population through agriculture given the poor soil. Archeologist Betty Meggers was a prominent proponent of this idea, as described in her book Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise.
She claimed that a population density of 0.2 inhabitants per square
kilometre (0.52/sq mi) is the maximum that can be sustained in the
rainforest through hunting, with agriculture needed to host a larger
population. However, recent anthropological
findings have suggested that the region was actually densely populated.
Some 5 million people may have lived in the Amazon region in AD 1500,
divided between dense coastal settlements, such as that at Marajó, and inland dwellers. By 1900, the population had fallen to 1 million and by the early 1980s it was less than 200,000. By 1900, the population had fallen to 1 million and by the early 1980s it was less than 200,000.
Amazon rainforest is full of different tribal people. They are so vastly cultured, and most of them are far away from the civilization. They have different culture, different languages, different food and living habit. They are broadly called the Indians. This is an ancestral home for atleast 1 million tribal people. They are divided into 400 tribes, with their different culture, different language and different habitant. Many of them are contacting with the outside civilization for more than 500 years, but there are some of them, who are known as uncontacted tribes.
The tribes of Amazon
Most of the tribes live beside the both riverbank of Amazon. Their main way of incomes are the crops, produced in the well fertile land of Amazon, the various kinds of fishes from the river, and the pottery. They grow fruits and vegetables like manioc, corn, beans, bananas etc. Generally they catch the fishes from the rivers using plant-based poisons by stun the fish. Some tribes also uses bows and arrows, spears, blow gun with dirt, tipped with the curari, which is a famous and dangerous poison, also for the people.
Today, despite the population decimation, natives peoples still live in
American rainforests, although virtually all have been affected by the
outside world. Instead of wearing traditional garb of loin cloths, most
Amerindians wear western clothes, and many use metal pots, pans, and
utensils for everyday life. Some groups make handicrafts to sell to
tourists, while others make routine trips to the city to bring foods and
wares to market. Almost no native group obtains the majority of its food by traditional
nomadic hunting and gathering. Nearly all cultivate crops, with hunting,
gathering, and fishing serving as a secondary or supplementary food
source. Usually a family has two gardens: a small house garden with a
variety of plants, and a larger plantation which may be one hectare in
area planted with bananas, manioc, or rice. These plantations are
created through the traditional practice of slash and burn, a method of
forest clearing that is not all that damaging to the forest if conducted
in the traditional manner.
The uncontacted tribes
There are some tribes, who are called the uncontacted or the isolated ones. They are completely isolated from the other societies, or the other tribe groups for so long. They have a different community only within themselves, their dressings, habits, ways of survival are completely different.Some of them haven't learn to use clothes till now. They have their own language of communication, some of them is only meaningless sound to us. The government of the respective countries have a separate policy to save them from the external danger, but the main problem are two- first, the lack of immunity to survive from the different respiratory and pandemic deseases, and second, the deforestation.
Deforestation
Deforestation is a very big problem now-a-days, since it is hampering the whole biodiversity of the amazon rainforest. The life of the tribes are also in trouble, since their main source of living is the forest and the river. The notion of a virgin Amazon is largely the result of the population
crash following the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth century.
Studies suggest that 11.8 percent of the Amazon's terra firme forests
are anthropogenic in nature resulting from the careful management of
biodiversity by indigenous people. However, unlike those using current
cultivation techniques, these Amazonians were attuned to the ecological
realities of their environment from five millennia of experimentation,
and they understood how to sustainably manage the rainforest to suit
their needs. Many of these populations existed along whitewater rivers where they had
good means of transportation, excellent fishing, and fertile floodplain
soils for agriculture. However, when Europeans arrived, these were the
first settlements to be affected, since Europeans used the major rivers
as highways to the interior. In the first century of European presence,
the Amerindian population was reduced by 90 percent. Most of the
remaining peoples lived in the interior of the forest: either pushed
there by the Europeans or traditionally living there in smaller groups.
Nice article
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DeleteWell penned 👍
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