This is archive material -- read about Greenpeace's current Amazon
campaign here.

THE AMAZON. LIFE.

Picture a natural space almost as vast as the United States. A rich, teeming ecosystem that could hold all of Western Europe or Southeast Asia in its bounds (See Map). The Northern Amazon Basin - spreading from its heart in Brazil through to Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Surinam, French Guiana, Guyana, Venezuela, and Columbia - is the grandest remaining tropical forest on earth. And it plays a critical role in everyone's life by stabilizing the climate on which existence depends.

The Amazon is home to 20 million people including 400 indigenous groups. Some have had little or no contact with the outside world. All exemplify rich cultural traditions, with different but highly-evolved moral codes and world-views, not to mention unique and valuable perceptions about living within environmental constraints and about making practical but sustainable use of nature's ample gifts. The Amazon rainforest is also the planets' richest remaining repository of species, a vast and overwhelming refuge that supports most of the land-based creatures on earth - rare tropical birds, mammals, extraordinary insects and reptiles, sleek predatory cats. These - and literally millions of different flora and fauna - are all woven together in a rich and complex natural tapestry. The Amazon river is a unique related ecosystem in its own right - one that has spawned over 3000 rare aquatic residents including two types of river dolphin, the giant otter, turtles, crocodiles, and much more. In short, the Amazon is an incomparable embodiment of life: a treasure beyond valuation.

The Amazon is an irreplacable resource for mankind. To the modern spirit, it represents a last remote and wild place on our distressed and crowded planet. And, in addition to the remarkable intrinsic beauty of its myriad plant and animal species, it is clear that this diversity also represents a natural medicine chest. Many powerful Amazon-sourced medicines have already been discovered and still more that hold out real hope for natural cures to life-threatening disease are still unexplored. The Amazon is a precious habitat - a towering testament to the evolutionary power and vitality of life. How much of this life - now in human trust - will remain for the generations ahead?