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That would be more than a South American disaster. It would be an incalculable catastrophe for the entire planet. Moist tropical forests are distinguished by their canopies of interlocking leaves and branches that shelter creatures below from sun and wind, and by their incredible variety of animal and plant life. If the forests vanish, so will more than 1 million species -- a significant part of earth's biological diversity and genetic heritage. Moreover, the burning of the Amazon could have dramatic effects on global weather patterns -- for example, heightening the warming trend that may result from the greenhouse effect. "The Amazon is a library for life sciences, the world's greatest pharmaceutical laboratory and a flywheel of climate," says Thomas Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution. "It's a matter of global destiny."
To Brazilians, such pressure amounts to unjustified foreign meddling and a blatant effort by the industrial nations to preserve their economic supremacy at the expense of the developing world. Brazilian President Jose Sarney has denounced the criticism of his country as "unjust, defamatory, cruel and indecent." How can Brazil be expected to control its economic development, he asks, when it is staggering under a $111 billion foreign-debt load? By what right does the U.S., which spews out more pollutants than any other nation, lecture poor countries like Brazil on their responsibilities to mankind?
Yet Sarney is caught between conflicting, and sometimes violent, forces within his nation. On one side are the settlers and developers, often backed by corrupt politicians, who are razing the forests to lay claim to the land. On the other are hundreds of fledgling conservation groups, along with the Indian tribes and rubber tappers whose way of life will be destroyed if the forests disappear. The clash has already produced the world's most celebrated environmental martyr, Chico Mendes, a leader of the rubber tappers who was murdered for trying to stand in the way of ranchers.
The passions behind the fight are easy to understand for anyone who has seen the almost unimaginable sweep of the Amazon basin. The river and forest system covers 2.7 million sq. mi. (almost 90% of the area of the contiguous U.S.) and stretches into eight countries besides Brazil, including Venezuela to the north, Peru to the west and Bolivia to the south. An adventurous monkey could climb into the jungle canopy in the foothills of the Andes and swing through 2,000 miles of continuous 200-ft.-high forest before reaching the Atlantic coast. The river itself, fed by more than 1,000 tributaries, meanders for 4,000 miles, a length second only to the Nile's 4,100 miles. No other river compares in volume: every hour the Amazon delivers an average of 170 billion gal. of water to the Atlantic -- 60 times the flow of the Nile. Even 1,000 miles upriver, it is often impossible to see from one side of the Amazon to the other.