Assignment 16 - Lentz

 Deforestation in the Amazon: An Annotated Bibliography

“Deforestation in the Amazon.” WWF. https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/forests_practice/deforestation_fronts2/deforestation_in_the_amazon/

This article introduces readers into the issue that deforestation poses to the Amazon Rainforest, and tells about trends and causes for deforestation.. It talks about the dangers that deforestation poses to the environment of the Amazon. It talks about the policies that the Amazon’s government is trying to implement to prevent deforesters from removing masses of trees. It states all of the natural resources that the rainforest contains, and how detrimental it would be to remove some of them. This article was posted by an organization called the World Wildlife Fund. They constantly post about different threats to our environment, including all natural resources and animals. They posted this article to raise awareness for this issue and warn about what could happen if we don’t do anything. I could use this to show why deforestation is a good cause to write about, and to introduce why people deforestate these areas.

Ingraham, Christopher. “How beef demand is accelerating the Amazon’s deforestation and climate peril.” The Washington Post, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/27/how-beef-demand-is-accelerating-amazons-deforestation-climate-peril/

This article is an opinionated piece that tries to explain why there shouldn’t be any need to deforestate the forest, and other problems that come with it. It talks about how area for cattle farming is the main reason why the Amazon is being deforested, and that with all the open places in the world, there is no need to use the Amazon’s natural resources to gain land. It tells a lot about the economic reasons why it shouldn’t be necessary. This was written by Christopher Ingraham, who writes all of his papers with meaningful data to attribute to his arguments. I can use this document as another perspective, the economic one, to help explain reasons why deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest shouldn’t happen.

Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. October 7, 1964

This book tells about a boy who was given all that a lonely tree could give him, but never gave back. It is known as being an emotional book because both the tree and the boy age with each other, but after the boy has taken everything from the tree, all that is left is the stump, and the boy moves on. The author faced criticism for this book because it taught about selfishness and being exploitable. I can use this in my speech to connect to my intended audience who has likely read this book before, and to relate it to the same thing humans are doing to the trees in the Amazon Rainforest, and hopefully draw an emotional connection.

Solinge, Tim. “Deforestation Crimes and Conflicts in the Amazon.” Springer Link. Critical Criminology, 263-277, 2010. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10612-010-9120-x.pdf 

This article looks more at the dangers deforestation poses to the inhabitants near the Amazon rather than the dangers to the environment. It tells about how most practices of deforestation are due to land conversion for agriculture, which affects the native people who live off of the land, and also the diverse plants and animals that live there. It says that most of the uses of deforestation are illegal, but people still do them anyway. This article was written by Time Boekhout van Solinge, a criminology specialist who has previously written about forest and wildlife crime like this one. I can use this article to give more reasons why deforestation in the Amazon is an issue other than just the threat it poses to the environment.

Wang, Jingfeng, et al. “Impact of deforestation in the Amazon basin on cloud climatology.” Massachusetts Institution of Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2008. https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/10/3670.full.pdf 

This article explores another effect of Amazonian deforestation in the world. This time, it talks about how it can have negative results on the climate from a scientific approach. They researched clouds and climate around areas of the forest that were deforested and other areas that weren’t, and compared how the ecosystem changed around the two areas. This was written and studied by a group of authors and researchers at the University of Massachusetts, and is an unbiased paper giving real effects of deforestation. I can use this to give scientific explanations for the other problems I have listed, and to gain credibility to this being an actual issue.