Guyana lies in the heart of one of the largest remaining wilderness areas on Earth, and up to 80 percent of its interior forests are still intact. But this is no longer the "lost world," as it was called by early explorers, and extractive natural resource-based industries are growing. To counter this threat, in 2002, the government of Guyana granted CI the world's first "conservation concession" to protect 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares) of primary rain forest.