The Amazon Rainforest under Threat

An indigenous family of the Tucuxi tribe at the 2009 World Social Forum in Brazil.

Coffee plantation slaves in Brazil, c. 1885.

Between 1875 and the 1940s, cigarette packages often included collectible cards that offered insights into popular culture.

Chained Amazon Indians during the rubber boom of the early 1900s.

Indigenous peoples march in the 2012 People’s Summit holding signs and chanting opposition to construction of the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River.

Crowds in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on August 24, 2019 protesting environmental policies and demanding protection of the Amazon.

A NASA map showing active fires in South America from August 15-22, 2019. The fires are shown in orange; towns and cities appear white; forested areas appear black; and tropical savannas appear gray.

August 22, 2019 tweet by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Cattle herd grazing near the rainforest in 2014 in Pará, Brazil.

Two axmen cutting timber in Fordlandia in 1931 (left). The Immigrant Highway was constructed in 1974 in the state of São Paulo, Brazil (right).

An animated NASA map shows carbon monoxide produced by Amazon basin fires from August 8-22, 2019.

The winged-stem passion flower is a native Amazon vine (top left). A hummingbird species, the fork-tailed woodnymph’s habitat is tropical (bottom left). A 2011 aerial view of the Amazon rainforest near Manaus, Brazil (right).

A 2018 NASA map shows Amazon boundaries: Brazilian Legal Amazon (yellow line), Amazon biome (green line), Amazon basin (blue line).

Pedra Furada rock painting dated 12,000 years ago in Piauí, Brazil (left). Pierced Rock site in Serra da Capivara Park (right).

Oscar Pereira da Silva’s 1922 artistic interpretation of the initial Portuguese landing in Brazil in 1500.

A 1519 Portuguese map showing the Brazilian coast with several Portuguese ships and natives gathering brazilwood.

Johann Moritz Rugendas’ painting of a Christianized Tapuyos Indian village, Brazil c. 1825.

A 1920 da Silva painting representing enslaved laborers in Brazil.

Marechal Rondon in 1930.

Xingu Indigenous Park location in 2016.

Claude Lévi-Strauss photographing a Brazilian native in the 1930s.

Uncontacted indigenous tribe in Acre, Brazil, in 2009.

A rubber tapper in the early 20th century slashing Brazilian trees to collect sap.

Dome of the Amazon Theater (Teatro Amazonas) under construction between 1880 and 1890 (left).  Amazon Theater in 2013 (right).

The Madeira-Mamoré Railroad built between 1907 and 1912 in Guaporé, Brazil.

Theodore Roosevelt sitting in a boat during the 1913-1914 Rondo-Roosevelt Scientific Expedition in the Amazon.

Johnson house in Fordlandia in 1935 (top left). Plantation laborer’s house (bottom left). Fordlandia terraced hillside in 1931 (center). In 1931, John Rogge, assistant manager at Fordlandia, holds a one-year old rubber tree (right).

A Brazilian magnesium mine in 1940.

Vintage poster created between 1930 and 1950 by Brazil’s National Department of Coffee.

A 2007 Sundance Grand Prize winner, Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) is a documentary film that profiles a Brazilian politician, who launders money through a frog farm with SUDAM connections.

A herd of Brahman cattle in 2016 in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Trans-Amazonian Highway after rain in 2015.

A 2008 aerial view of the Tucuruí Hydroelectric Dam in Pará, Brazil.

Brumadinho disaster in Minas Gerais, Brazil, in 2019.

The 1992 United Nations Earth Summit focused on sustainable development.

Harvesting soybeans in 2009 in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Corralled cattle in the Amazon in 2007.

Andre Karipuna, one of 58 remaining members of the Karipuna tribe in 2019, holds a banner written in Portuguese and Karipuna that reads “No Forest No Life.”

Rainforest scars from illegal mining and deforestation on Tenharim Indigenous Land in Amazonas, Brazil, in 2018.