The Amazon Rainforest:
Amazon Quick Facts:
- 1.4 billion hectares of forest
- The world’s largest river basin and the source of one-fifth of all free-flowing fresh water on Earth
- One in ten known species in the world live in the Amazon Rainforest
- Threats – Soy plantation expansion, cattle ranching, unsustainable logging, human settlement
- Around 14% of the rainforest has already been deforested and this process continues at a rate of approximately 20,000km2 a year
- Amazon basin is home to 21 million people of which about 30% live in rural areas and 200,000 are indigenous
- The Amazon covers approximately 50% of Brazil and stores huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Burning of forest, however, has released so much of this greenhouse gas that Brazil is now placed 4th in the world for CO2 emissions