The forests of Amazonia — the vast Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield in South America — are rapidly vanishing. Nearly 6,000 square kilometers (3,600 square miles) of forests were lost in 2015 in the Brazilian Amazon alone. If this continues,
humanity faces the irrevocable loss of one of the great harbors of biodiversity, fresh water and climate resilience: Forests alone provide 30 percent of the solution to climate change.
The next five years are critically important for Amazonia. Increasing global demand for resources risks further deforestation that places the region, its people and the world at risk. With this in mind, Conservation International and its partners
are pursuing an ambitious strategy to sustain nature in Amazonia so it can continue to sustain us all.