The Amazon's rain forest

 The Amazon Rain Forest

The Amazon rainforest, alternatively, the Amazon jungle, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km² (2,700,000 sq mi), of which 5,500,000 km² (2,100,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 formally acknowledged indigenous territories.

The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Bolivia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. Four nations have "Amazonas" as the name of one of their first-level administrative regions, and France uses the name "Guiana Amazonian Park" for its rainforest protected area. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world, with an estimated 390 billion individual trees divided into 16,000 species.

Preserving the Amazon rainforest is of global importance in the fight against climate change, but it is under threat from forest fires, mostly started to clear land for agriculture.

Early numbers from this year's fire season show an increase, leading to concern from scientists.

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil recently said that claims the Amazon "is going up in flames" were not true, despite statistics published by his own government showing the spread of fires.

But there is concern about a surge in blazes last month, earlier than would normally be expected.

If we consider the average number of fires in July over the period from 2010-2019, then the number of fires in July 2020 represented an increase of 55.6% of the average.

An increase also happened in June (19.6% compared to June last year, and 36.1% compared to the average for the month of June between 2010-19). The peak of the fire season is often seen in August to September.

6 steps you can take to help save the Amazon and the world's rainforests :-

1.  Reduce your paper and wood consumption.
2.  Reduce your oil consumption.
3.  Reduce your beef consumption.
4.  Hold businesses accountable.
5.  Invest in rainforest communities.
6.  Support the grassroots.