"It's surely our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on earth" - Sir David Attenborough

While many logging laws exist, illegal logging is a large issue in the Amazon Rainforest. Many companies use illegal logging methods in order to improve their timber industry in their country by collecting a large amount of cheap wood from the rainforest. Logging in the Amazon Rainforest causes many negative impacts on the environment and biodiversity of the area. For example, the loss of species’ habitats due to deforestation from logging has caused a decrease in biodiversity and in the amount of animal species in the Amazon Rainforest. Selective logging can be used as a more sustainable source of logging for the future. This means certain trees are felled for their timber but are then restored following this. (Reference 2)

Climate change can have big impacts on the Amazon Rainforest. Firstly, higher temperatures can impact many species which area temperature-dependent, for example, fish. This could lead to many species having to migrate to areas of a lower temperature; however, many species are unable to migrate, and therefore suffer and will eventually die. Moreover, increased temperatures and reduced rainfall can cause the soil to become very dry and infertile, leading to a lack of a wide variety of exotic plant species. In addition to this, less rainfall could largely affect many Amazon rivers and other freshwater ecosystems as it causes a change in the nutrient input into streams and rivers, affecting the aquatic organisms. (Reference 5)

This graph shows that recently (July 2019), the rate of destruction in the Amazon Rainforest has rapidly increased. This is due to human factors which have caused many knock-on effects to deforestation, for example: loss of animal habitats. In addition, the main trend in this graph illustrates that the levels of destruction at the start of each year start low and then begin to increase as it reaches around August time. Following this, the graph shows that the levels start to decrease again towards the end of the year. This could be due to the climate at certain times of the year, making summer months more appropriate for construction workers to work in the rainforest. Furthermore, following August 2018, the graph shows that President Bolsonaro was introduced to Brazil. He proposed the idea of 'harvesting the rainforest', which raised many fears with environmentalists and indigenous tribes living in the Amazon Rainforest at the time.