Amazon rainforest

The Amazon is a huge rainforest in South America.

It is warm and wet there almost all the time. Tall trees grow very close together. A giant river called the Amazon flows through it.

The Amazon rainforest grows around the Amazon River and the many rivers that flow into it, in northern South America. It covers about 6 million square kilometers, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Andes Mountains in the west. Near the Atlantic it is about 320 kilometers wide, and near the Andes it widens to about 1,900 kilometers.

About 60 percent of the Amazon is in Brazil, where it covers about 40 percent of the country. The rest spreads into Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Rain falls often, the air is humid, and it is warm all year.

Britannica describes the Amazon Rainforest as a large tropical rainforest occupying the drainage basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries, about 6,000,000 km² (2,300,000 square miles), bounded by the Guiana Highlands to the north, the Andes to the west, the Brazilian central plateau to the south and the Atlantic to the east. It widens from a 320 km front on the Atlantic to a belt about 1,900 km wide where the lowlands meet the Andean foothills.

About 60 percent of the basin lies in Brazil, where the forest makes up about 40 percent of the national territory; the rest extends across eight other countries and territories (Wikidata lists Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France, for French Guiana, an overseas territory). Amazonia is the largest river basin in the world, and the immense extent and continuity of the forest reflect the region's high rainfall, high humidity and constantly high temperatures.

More kinds of living things live in the Amazon than we can count.

Jaguars walk on the forest floor. Sloths hang in the trees. Bright macaws fly overhead. River dolphins swim in the rivers.

Britannica calls the Amazon the world's richest and most varied home for living things. It holds several million kinds of insects, plants, birds and other life, and many of them have not yet been described by scientists. Trees include Brazil nut and rubber trees, palms, mahogany and many more.

Jaguars, tapirs, capybaras and several kinds of monkeys live in the forest, along with sloths, macaws, toucans and anacondas. The rivers are full of life too. They are home to Amazonian manatees, black caimans, giant otters and river dolphins, and to the giant arapaima, the largest freshwater fish in South America.

Britannica describes the Amazon as the world's richest and most varied biological reservoir, containing several million species of insects, plants, birds and other organisms, many still unrecorded. Trees include many species of myrtle, laurel, palm and acacia, as well as rosewood, Brazil nut and rubber tree; mahogany and Amazonian cedar provide timber. Major wildlife includes the jaguar, manatee, tapir, capybara and other rodents and several types of monkeys, and Britannica's wildlife videos show sloths, macaws, toucans, caimans, anacondas and leaf-cutter ants.

UNESCO's Central Amazon Conservation Complex, at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões Rivers, protects the Anavilhanas Archipelago, one of the largest river archipelagos in the world and home to the largest array of electric fish on the planet, along with threatened species such as the giant arapaima (the largest freshwater fish in South America), the giant otter, the Amazonian manatee, the black caiman and two species of freshwater dolphins.

Some of the forest has been cut down for farms.

Many people are working to protect it. Big parks keep the trees and animals safe. People who live there help look after it.

In the 1900s, many people moved into the Amazon and cleared forest for wood, farms and cattle. In Brazil, the forest covered about 4.1 million square kilometers in 1970 and about 3.3 million square kilometers by 2016, about 81 percent of what it had been.

Since the 1990s, Brazil's government and international groups have worked to protect parts of the forest, and between 2008 and 2016 the loss slowed to about 0.1 to 0.2 percent a year. The Central Amazon Conservation Complex, a World Heritage Site of more than 6 million hectares, is the largest protected area in the Amazon Basin, and UNESCO says it is important to keep involving Indigenous people in looking after it.

Britannica reports that Brazilian Amazon forest cover fell from about 4,100,000 km² in 1970 to about 3,323,000 km² by 2016, some 81 percent of the 1970 area, as settlers cleared land for lumber, grazing and farming. Protection efforts by Brazil and international bodies began in the 1990s; the annual loss fell from roughly 0.4 percent in the 1980s and 1990s to roughly 0.1 to 0.2 percent between 2008 and 2016. Britannica also records some 75,000 fires in the Brazilian Amazon in the first half of 2019, 85 percent more than in 2018.

The Central Amazon Conservation Complex began with Jaú National Park (inscribed in 2000) and was expanded in 2003 with Anavilhanas National Park and the Amanã and Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserves. UNESCO notes that the national parks have advisory boards and the reserves legislative councils, and that continuing to involve Indigenous people in management is important. JPL's rain study helps explain why clearing forest in the southern Amazon is linked with reduced rainfall.

Many people live in the Amazon. It is their home.

Visitors follow the rules of the parks. They leave the plants and animals where they are.

The Amazon is not empty wilderness. People live there, including Indigenous peoples, and UNESCO notes that a few thousand people in parts of the Central Amazon depend on the forest's natural resources to live. Visitors are guests in someone's home.

UNESCO says that because of tourism and research, protected areas such as Jaú and Mamirauá need clear plans for how the public uses them. Visit through the parks' official routes, follow their rules, and leave plants and animals where they are.

Much of the protected Amazon is lived in. The Central Amazon complex includes two Sustainable Development Reserves, and UNESCO notes that a few thousand people in parts of the area depend on its natural resources for their survival. It stresses that Indigenous people should continue to take part in managing the property. To meet the participatory management Brazilian law requires, the national parks have advisory boards and the reserves legislative councils.

UNESCO notes that the needs of international tourism and of research require Jaú and Mamirauá to have well-defined public use plans, so visitors should go through the parks' authorized arrangements and follow their rules. The complex sits mainly at the meeting of the Negro and Solimões Rivers. Respect also means caring about the forest after the trip: Britannica's figures on forest loss and JPL's findings on rainfall show how closely the forest and its climate are connected.