The Amazon River Basin is home to thelargest rainforest on Earth. The basin --roughly the size of the forty-eightcontiguous United States -- covers some40 percent of the South Americancontinent and includes parts of eightSouth American countries: Brazil, Bolivia,Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela,Guyana, and Suriname, as well as FrenchGuiana, a department of France.
EMERGENT LAYER
The tallest trees are the emergent, towering as much as 200 feetabove the forest floor with trunks that measure up to 16 feetaround. Most of these trees are broad-leaved, hardwoodevergreens. Sunlight is plentiful up here. Animals found are eagles,monkeys, bats and butterflies.
CANOPY LAYER
This is the primary layer of the forest and forms a roof over the tworemaining layers. Most canopy trees have smooth, oval leaves thatcome to a point. It's a maze of leaves and branches. Many animalslive in this area since food is abundant. Those animals include:snakes, toucans and tree frogs.
UNDERSTORY LAYER
Little sunshine reaches this area so the plants have to grow largerleaves to reach the sunlight. The plants in this area seldom grow to12 feet. Many animals live here including jaguars, red-eyed treefrogs and leopards. There is a large concentration of insects here.
FOREST FLOOR
It's very dark down here. Almost no plants grow in this area, as aresult. Since hardly any sun reaches the forest floor things begin todecay quickly. A leaf that might take one year to decompose in aregular climate will disappear in 6 weeks. Giant anteaters live inthis layer.
An estimated 400-500 indigenousAmazonian Indian tribes (Amerindians)exist today in the Amazon Rainforest.There are about fifty of these tribeswho do not have any contact with theoutside world. These groups have theirown society where kids do not go to aformal school but instead, when theyare old enough, are taught what theyneed to know from their elders.Another interesting fact is that some ofthe greatest threats to these tribescome from people from the outsideworld.
Modern-Day Plague
•Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on amassive scale, often resulting in damage tothe quality of the land. Forests still coverabout 30 percent of the world’s land area,but swaths the size of Panama are lost eachand every year.
•The world’s rain forests could completelyvanish in a hundred years at the currentrate of deforestation.
•Forests are cut down for many reasons, butmost of them are related to money or topeople’s need to provide for their families.The biggest driver of deforestation isagriculture. Farmers cut forests to providemore room for planting crops or grazinglivestock. Often many small farmers willeach clear a few acres to feed their familiesby cutting down trees and burning them ina process known as “slash and burn”agriculture.
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