Environment of Brazil

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Brazil's immense area is subdivided into different ecosystems, which together sustain some of the world's greatest biodiversity. Due to the relatively explosive economic and demographic rise of the country in the last century, Brazil's ability to protect its environmental habitats has increasingly come under threat. Extensive logging in the nation's forests, particularly the Amazon, both official and unofficial, destroys areas the size of a small country each year, and potentially a diverse variety of plants and animals[109]. As several of these specimens possess special characteristics, or are built in an interesting way, some of their capabilities may be copied for use in technology (see bionics). The revenues derived from such plans may still hold the key to preserve the country's animal and plant species. There is general consensus, that Brazil has the highest number of both terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates of any country in the world. This high diversity of fauna can be explained by the sheer size of Brazil and also the great variation in ecosystems. The numbers published about Brazil's fauna diversity can vary from source to source, as taxonomists sometimes disagree about species classifications and information can be incomplete or out of date. Also new species continue to be discovered and, sadly, some species go extinct in the wild. Brazil has the highest primate diversity of any country in the world with 77 species and fresh water fish (over 3000 species),[110] it also claims the highest number of mammals with 524 species,[110] the second-highest number of amphibian with 517 species and butterflies with 3,150 species,[110] the third highest number of bird with 1,622 species,[110] and fifth number of reptile with 468 species.[110] Many of the species that are at risk live in threatened habitats such as the Atlantic Forest. With abundant fauna and flora, Brazil is home to many thousands of species, most of them still undiscovered. By 2020, it is estimated that at least 50% of the species resident in Brazil will become extinct.[111]