Over the past quarter-century huge areas of Amazonian forest have been reduced to ashes. The conquest of the Amazon resembles more a scorched earth policy than development. The rate of deforestation has been close to exponential, and it has all been for nothing.
The forests of the Amazon are home to at least two-thirds of the world’s organisms. They are known to nourish three million species, and recent research suggests that the number could actually be ten times higher. The destruction now going on will, if it continues, destroy or threaten more than half the world’s species of animals and plants over the next twentyfive years.