Text 05 The Amazon rain forest is the world's biggest tropical rain forest occupying the drain age basin of the Amazon River, in Northern South America. If covers an area of 6.000.000 square Km, 40% of South America, spanning across Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and French Guiana. It is larger than the next two largest combined rainforests. Ifs home to more than 30 million people and one-tenth of known species on Earth.. The Amazon has an extremely diverse ecosystern. There are around 40.000 plant species, 3000 types of fish, 10.00 types of birds, 430 mammal species and a whopping 2.5 million different types of insects. Around 500 indigenous tribes, call the Amazon rainforest home. Overfifty of these tribes have never had contact with the outside world! The Amazon has more than 390 billion trees. Due to the thickness of the canopy, only 1% of the sunlight makes it to Amazon's ground, and it takes around 10 minutes for the rainwater to reach the ground! It also transpires about 7 trillion tons of water per year into the atmosphere recycling 50-75% of annual rainfall. Amazon absorbs 2 billion tons of CO2 per year which is 5% of annual global emissions, and it stores up to 140 billion tons of carbon, making it an essential part of preventing climate change. We rely on Amazon's resources for food and medicines. 70% of plants with anti-cancer properties are found in the rainforest. With such an important area, we should protect it at all costs. However it faces many threats, including deforestation from poorly planned infrastructure, illegal and unsustainable natural resource extraction, exten sive cattle ranching and agricultural expansion, and climate change. It is estimated that over 906.000 hectares of forest have been lost to wildfires in 2019. And if this continues, all the stored carbon would be released into the atmosphere, and fuel climate change. Experts predict that the rainforest could be completely lost by 2060 if no action is taken to solve the problem.