Need to know: top 10 facts about the Amazon

• At 5.5 million square kilometres, the Amazon is the biggest tropical rainforest in the world.
• It is located on the north side of South America and is shared by nine countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname, French Guiana and Guiana.
• More than 200 indigenous groups live in the Amazon; about 50 of those communities have never made contact with the outside world. 
• The Amazon River is 6,400km long, making it the second-longest river in the world and the largest by volume.
• Climate-change scientists have warned that a three-degree rise in temperature will destroy 75 percent of the Amazon rainforest within 100 years.
• The current fires raging through the Amazon rainforest in Brazil have reached record levels, with NASA saying they are the highest in any year since 2010.
• According to experts, the Amazon is depleting at a rate of 1.5 acres every second because of deforestation for cattle grazing and crop production.
• The Amazon is home to more than 16,000 different species of trees, 2.5 million insect species, 1,300 bird species, 427 mammals, 430 amphibian species and 380 reptile species.
• Known as the “lungs of the planet”, the Amazon is like a giant air machine; it draws in and recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen before releasing it into the air.
• More than 80 per cent of the types of food the world consumes originated in the Amazon, including avocados, coconuts, vegetables and spices.

By Source: Conserve Energy Future