The Amazon Rainforest is home to 25%  of all of the land dwelling species on the planet. This is one of the most important ecological habitats on the planet and it is very important to protect it. 

The Amazon spreads over a land area that is around 5.5 to 6.7 million square miles over 9 South American countries like Brazil and Peru. Many of the animals and plants that live here are endangered species that do not live anywhere else on earth. Notable animals are green anacondas, jaguars, and capybaras. The Amazon is the largest rainforest on the planet with the second place one being the Congo Basin in Africa that only spans 1.5 million square miles. 

Other than the matter of protecting all of these species of wildlife, there are reasons that you should want this rainforest to remain alive. The area is a well known carbon sink because it holds 150 billion metric tonnes of carbon. This means that it slows climate change down quite a lot. 25% of the west’s pharmaceutical ingredients are from the Amazon. The entire Amazon river system contains 20% of the world’s fresh water. The rainforest is home to a large number of indigenous groups and the water in clouds and held as vapor in the air have a large impact on the world’s rain. 

It is no secret that the Amazon has been shrinking with around 20% going away due to deforestation in the last 50 years. Luckily, people have been working to protect it and help preserve this vital ecosystem. Around half of the Amazon Rainforest is protected though this number isn’t perfect with infrastructure projects still able to be built in some of these areas. Even though a highway is thin, it can be harmful to a much larger land area with the noise produced and of course animals crossing the road. It is unfortunate that there is a lot of illegal logging that happens in the Amazon on protected lands which has been a struggle to stop in recent times.