Amazon rainforest

The Amazon rainforest occupies much of the drainage basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries. It stretches from the Atlantic lowlands in the east toward the Andes in the west, across northern South America. The forest and wider Amazon biome do not have exactly interchangeable boundaries: published area estimates depend on whether they refer to forest cover, the river basin or a broader ecological region. Brazil contains the largest share, while the biome also extends into Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.

High rainfall, humidity and warm temperatures sustain the region's extensive rainforest. Water continually moves between the forest, soils, rivers and atmosphere, so changes in vegetation can affect local and regional rainfall. The Amazon is among the world's most species-rich ecosystems. It supports millions of species, many not yet formally described, including jaguars, tapirs, monkeys and an enormous variety of plants, insects, birds and freshwater life. Its forests also store large amounts of carbon, linking the health of the region to wider climate processes.

The Amazon is not an uninhabited wilderness: Indigenous peoples and other communities live throughout the region, with distinct languages, knowledge and relationships to their environments. Archaeological and ecological evidence shows that human influence has varied across places. For example, a Smithsonian-led study of selected forest sites in northeastern Peru found little evidence of intensive clearing over at least five millennia in those areas away from major rivers; it did not suggest that Indigenous peoples never used or managed Amazonian forests.

Forest loss and degradation have resulted from activities including logging, road building, farming and the expansion of pasture. In parts of the Brazilian Amazon, satellite observations have documented clearing spreading along roads and into previously forested areas. Deforestation can reduce rainfall and raise dry-season temperatures locally, while global climate change adds further pressure; research has found these forces interact to alter the region's water and carbon cycles. Conservation efforts include protected areas and Indigenous and community-led stewardship, but the scale and causes of change vary across the Amazon, requiring locally informed approaches.