Biodiversity Essay

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LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY IN THE AMAZOM: A GLOBAL THREAT FOR THE WORLD. Introduction : Biodiversity is the term used for variety of life on the earth. The variety of life on earth can be measured at several different levels that ranges from a small organism like bacteria to a big organism like blue whale. In its all, biodiversity forms an essential part of the earth as it supports life on the planet earth. Biodiversity includes countless species on the earth from insets to mammals. There are 1,000,000 species of insects on earth. There are 310,129 species of plants on earth. There are 98,998 species of fungi on earth, 85,000 species of mollusks, 102,248 species of arachnids, 31,153 species of fish, 9,900 species of birds, 8,734 species of reptiles, 6,515 species of amphibian, 5,487 species of mammals and 66,307 species of viruses and bacteria on earth. These are the estimates of the discovered species and there is lot of species yet to be discovered in dark rainforests of Amazon. Estimates show that only 1% of medicinal plant species of Amazon have discovered yet and remaining 99% remains yet to be discovered. The Amazon forest is the biggest tropical rainforest in the world, and covers around 40%of the South American continent and is spread over 9 countries of the world. These tropical rainforests are spread over around 6.6 m square kilometers. These forests are home to a large number of varying species on the earth. 40,000 plant species and 1,000 different trees have been identified in these tropical rainforests. These rainforests are home to 427 different mammals, 1,294 birds and 30 million people according to world wide fund for nature. These rainforests are being cleared at an alarming rate due to increase of human activities in this region for example since 1970 almost 700,000 square kilometer of the Brazilian rainforests have been cleared due to human

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