Resource information
The largest hydrographic basin in the
world, the Amazon is the source of 20 percent of all the
fresh water on the planet. The Basin covers some 600 million
hectares in nine countries, over half of which are located
within Brazil's national boundaries. A striking
characteristic of the Amazon region is its tremendous
biodiversity, which includes an estimated 50,000 species of
plants, 3,000 species of fish and over 400 known species of
mammals. To date, scientists have classified 467 species of
reptiles and 516 species of amphibians. Nearly 2,000 known
species of birds and the majority of the world's
primates are endemic to Amazonia. An estimated 20 million
people currently live in the Brazilian Amazon, the majority
in urban areas. The region is home to over 170 indigenous
groups with distinct cultures, in various levels of contact
with the outside world. A variety of social and economic
groups are also part of the rural landscape, including
rubber-tappers, Brazil nut gatherers, riverine populations,
migrant settlers, placer miners, loggers and cattle
ranchers. In the 1960s and 1970s, a rapid process of
frontier expansion was initiated in the Brazilian Amazon,
associated with cattle ranching, commercial logging, and
creation of rural settlements, mining, road construction and
hydroelectric projects. Over a period of four decades,
approximately 78 million hectares in the Brazilian Amazon
(15.3 percent of the total area) were cleared. About 70
percent of this deforestation has occurred along the
southern flanks of the Amazon, in the states of Para, Mato
Grosso and Rondonia.
