Buildings Can Wait, Focus on the Rain Forests!

       I read the article "In Fragmented Brazilian Forest, Few Species Survive" by Kelly Slivka, published in The New York Times on August 14, 2012. The article talks about how the Atlantic Forest in Brazil has been fragmented by many years of human habitation. This has caused many species to find other habitats to live in because their habitat has been ruined. If you want to read the article, here is the link: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/in-fragmented-brazilian-forest-few-species-survive/.

       The Atlantic Forest is a rain forest near Rio de Janeiro and runs along Brazil's southeastern shore. This rain forest used to be over half a million square miles! Now 90% of that is gone due to habitat fragmentation. This is a picture of the forest.

       There are some areas of forest that have survived forest fires and deforestation. These pockets of forest may vary in size. They are very important for the biodiversity that the region still boasts. Although many species have found different homes because the patches do not provide enough protection for some species to thrive, some areas have a very diverse group of species. 

       Researchers found only 22% of the original animals that inhabited the area still live there. They also found that five larger mammal species are essentially extinct throughout the region of the rain forest. This is all because trees have been exchanged for roads, cities, buildings, and fields.

        Carlos Peres, an Ecologist at the University of East Anglia in Britain said, "There is little chance that the patches from which many mammals have vanished can be repopulated because a strong “source population” would be needed for recolonization." This is very sad to hear because it is our fault that the rain forest has been fragmented. We are the ones that kept building. 

       Reading this article made me realize that humans fragmenting land is very bad for the habitat. It causes species to leave their homes. I choose to do this topic because I had never really heard about habitat destruction before and I'm glad I choose it. I think that we need to stop cutting down trees as much so we have more buildings. We don't need that many buildings and it is important to keep our habitats, such as the rain forest, the way they are.

       This is exactly like what we learned in class when we watched The Lorax. In the movie the Onceler and his family kept building factories and didn't even realize that they had ruined the habitat until it was too late. They cut down all the trees and the species that lived there had to find a new habitat. In the article the Atlantic Forest is losing its species because of habitat destruction. This goes to show that once something drastic is done to a habitat, it is very hard to get it back to normal. I hope one day the Atlantic  Forest will be the way it was many years ago, but everyone will have to try to save it because it is worth it!