The Amazon Jungle.. a brief introduction... Facts: In total the Amazon covers 2,700,000 square miles, which makes it as big as Australia. A network of 50,000 miles of waterways criss-cross the Amazon, about 14,ooo miles of them being navigable. Over 60,000 species of tropical plant are native to the Amazon basin. That is about one quarter of all plant species on earth. Some 4,000 species of tree grow in the Amazon. Only about a half dozen of these, however, have been commercially utilised. A reported 14,712 species of animal life make their home in the Amazon. 8,000 of them are unique to that part of the earth. The Amazon Jungle is a place of intrigue and wonder to most of us in the Western world - a place as distant and mysterious as the planet Mars.
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