The Amazon is an exotic place in a distant land so why is the Amazon important to me?

-- First, the Amazon is the largest forest, richest ecosystem in the world. More plant and animal species exist here than in the rest of the world combined.

April 1, 1998 a U.N. team of disaster experts traveled to northern Brazil, where fires set by subsistence farmers have swept out of control and scorched millions of acres of Amazon jungle. There are about 1500 fire fighters plus planes and helicopters aiding in the effort to control the blaze. The Brazilian government showed a line of fire about 140 miles long pushing through the rainforest. About 38,400,000 acres have been scorched, after burning our of control for more than two months. Smoke from the rainforest fire has filled the skies throughout central United States as far north as Minnesota and dumped ash along the Gulf Coast. The fire has destroyed homes in indigenous communities such as those of the stone-age tribe of the Yanomami. The Yanomami tribe was providing crucial aid in the fire-fighting efforts. We have no record of a fire on this scale in the Amazon. Carlos Monteiro, chief of the U.N. called the fires "an environmental disaster without precedent on the planet."