Everything about the Amazon is extreme, awe inspiring, breathtaking and it is almost impossible to take in the sheer size and numbers that the Amazon Basin encompasses! The Amazon Basin drains an area 3/4 the size of the continental United States and covers 1/2 of the South American continent. From its source deep in the Peruvian Andes, 200km from the Pacific Ocean, it is 6450km to the mouth. Only the Nile is longer, but not by much!

To put it into some kind of perspective, there are approximately 15000 tributaries of which 12 are over 1600km long themselves! What the Thames River in England discharges in 1 year, the Amazon discharges in a single day! If the Amazon drained Lake Superior in North America (this lake is North America's largest freshwater reservoir), it would take just two years to empty it altogether.

The fresh water it discharges can be found at least 200km out to sea! Some sailors, in bygone eras, reported that the water was still good enough to drink even though the river was nowhere in sight! So vast is the amount of water in the Basin, that it comprises an estimated 1/5 of all the planet's freshwater!

You can take an ocean going ship all the way to Iquitos, Peru from the Atlantic Ocean. That is approximately 3700km inland! In same places the Amazon is 9km wide and at the mouth it is 65km wide! It is, on average, 15-30m deep and in one place it is 60m deep!

But the sheer size of the area is not only impressive factor, nor the extraordinary volumes of water to be found within it, the amount of silt within the water is colossal too. Jacque Costeau calculated that 400 million tonnes of silt are discharged into the ocean every year and a giant fan-shaped mud mountain extends 800km from the delta and descends 4500m to the ocean floor! That is a huge underwater mountain that the river has discharged into the ocean!

Besides the physical aspects of the Amazon Basin, it contains an astonishing number of known species of fauna. Scientists know that the Amazon contains ¾ of all known insects in the entire world! It has 11 000 species of birds, and approximately 2000 species of fish. But many experts believe that the Amazon is home to far more species than what is known. Some think that there are, at least, another 1000 species of fish to be described to science.What no one is sure of though, is the number of other species that have yet to be described to science! Some think that there are still millions of species, especially insect species to be described!

Did you know that there are two species of wild dog in the Amazon? If not, that is because so little is known of them , but they are out there occupying some important niche in the eco-system! So vast are the numbers regarding every aspect of the Amazon Basin, that unless you are careful, they will blind you into believing that all is well and that it will absorb all humankind throw at it.

However, the more you read about this place, the more you realise how delicate the balance is between all the components of the eco-system. When thinking about any ecology, it is important to remember that every component is linked absolutely to each other, above and below and to each side of it. Think of a triangle where those above are utterly dependent on those below. In the Amazon, the rainforest is the base of this ecology's triangle.

The rain that the Basin receives is dependent upon the extent of the coverage of the rainforest. Decreased rainforest means decreased rain and decreased rain means less water; and EVERYTHING depends upon rain. Some scientists speculate that increased global temperatures may be attributed to the decrease in global rainforests. Less rainforest means less habitat for indigenous tribes to carry out their traditional ways of life and it means that species, that may hold extraordinary benefits for humankind, are becoming extinct because of habitat destruction. The rainforest are always giant sponges that absorb tremendous amounts of water and prevent the entire volume discharging down mountain sides and causing massive erosion of the topsoil and clogging up rivers with silt. Too much silt in the water causes oxygen and sunlight depletion which in turn lead to species elimination.

So efficient is the rainforest in recycling decomposing nutrients, that the mulch layer found underneath it, is actually very thin and limited. When humankind engages in slash and burn techniques to open up rainforest for agriculture and livestock, it brings our destruction ever closer. It only takes a few years for the nutrients in the newly slashed and burned ground to be leached out and for more forest to be destroyed. Either that or use of artificial fertilisers that eventually find their way into rivers, seas and oceans.

What drives this need to engage in this slash and burn? Global demand for beef has skyrocketed in the last two decades and beef needs plenty of grassland. Did you know that cows farting vast quantities of methane into the atmosphere is a major contributor to greenhouse gases and global warming? McDonalds might well be the end of us all! Want to supersize that? Only costs an extra 50p?

The bottom line is that the destruction of the rainforests will eventually bring about our own demise unless we do something to protect those forests and allow for their sustainable use. When we are looking down the barrel of the environmental gun and see that bullet heading our way, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves and our need for more and better!

Do you think that we are perhaps sitting on a knife edge at the outset of the 21st century? Only we can change our future that so far looks bleak and miserable if we continue unabated. The choice is ours......