The Amazon Rainforest is the world’s greatest natural resource – the most powerful and bio-actively diverse natural phenomenon on the planet. Yet still it is being destroyed just like other rainforests around the world.

The Amazon Rainforest has long been a symbol of mystery and power, a sacred link between humans and nature. It is also the richest biological incubator on the planet. It supports millions of plant, animal and insect species – a virtual library of chemical invention. In these  archives, drugs like quinine, muscle relaxants, steroids and cancer drugs are found. More importantly, are the new drugs still awaiting discovery – drugs for AIDS, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and Alzheimer’s. Many secrets and untold treasures await discovery with the medicinal plants used by shamans, healers and the indigenous people of the Rainforest Tribes. So alluring are the mysteries of indigenous medical knowledge that over 100 pharmaceutical companies and even the US government are currently funding projects studying the indigenous plant knowledge and the specific plants used by native shamans and healers.Few places on earth can boast the teeming multitude of life and wildlife found in the Amazon, the largest remaining tropical rainforest on the planet. One-tenth of all the world’s species are found here and the scope for new sights and sounds is endless. Bonding experiences don’t get much more wide-eyed than this.

Whether you choose to hike through the jungle or take a kayak up the world’s most imposing river, this is nature as you’ve never seen it before – a mass of living, breathing flora and fauna, with a different surprise round every corner. And if you’ve got an eye for detail, you might even discover a new species of insect. The Amazon Rainforest is natural history in the making – and you can be part of it. The Amazon rain forest, with an area of about 7 million sq km (about 2.7 million sq mi), covers much of equatorial South America and contains more species of flora and fauna than any other ecosystem in the world. Trees constitute about 70 percent of the plant species found in rain forests. Currently, the Amazon rain forest is being cleared at an alarming rate for timber and agricultural purposes. A palm that the Yine Indians and other indigenous people use to make thatched rooves with; A Heliconius flower.A giant leaf has fallen to the forest floor. For scale, a “normal” sized leaf is on the upper right tip. The yellowish leaf is about 5 feet tall! A leafhopper and an orchid from the Amazon cloud forests in the Andes.