Amazon Rain ForestThe Amazon rain forest, which covers approximately 2.7 million square miles(7 million sq km), is the world's largest tropical forest.Located mainly in Brazil, the Amazon rain forest accountsFor more than 20 percent of all the world's tropical forests.Known in Brazil as the jungle, the rain forest isthe vast storehouse of biological diversity, filled withplants and animals both familiar and exotic. Accordingto estimates, at least half of all terrestrial speciesare found in tropical forests, but many of thesespecies have not yet been identified.Tropical forests contain many valuable resources,including cacao (chocolate), nuts, spices, rare hardwood,and plant extracts used to make medicines.Some drugs used in treating cancer and heart diseasecome from plants found only in tropical forests. Buthuman intervention — logging, mining, and clearing land forcrops and grazing — has put tropical forests atgreat risk. In Brazil, roads cut into the rain foresthave opened the way for settlers, who clearaway the forest only to discover soil too poor innutrients to sustain agriculture for more thana few years. Land usually is cleared by a method called slash-and-burn, whichcontributes to global warming by releasing great amounts of carbon dioxide intothe atmosphere.
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