Amazon biome Amazonas, Brazil contains campinarana, dense rainforest and contact between campinarana and rainforest. The vegetation formations include terra firme forests and igapós. Submontane forests climb the first steps of the Guiana Plateau to about , followed by montane forests. Lichens and bromeliads are found up to . There is also alpine tundra in the tabular plateaus. The Amazon basin contains several large areas of moist forest, collectively called the Amazon rainforest. These are the Caquetá, Japurá-Solimões-Negro, Juruá-Purus, Madeira-Tapajós, Napo, Purus-Madeira, Solimões-Japurá, Southwest Amazon, Tapajós-Xingu, Tocantins-Pindara, Uatuma-Trombetas, Ucayali and Xingu-Tocantins-Araguaia moist forests. Each has distinctive vegetation. In the broad definition favored by
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest In the pre-Columbian era, parts of the Amazon Rainforest were a densely populated open agriculture. After the European colonization in the 16th century, with the hunt for gold, Western diseases, slavery and later the rubber boom, the Amazon Rainforest was depopulated and the forest grew larger. Prior to 1974s, access to the forest's largely roadless interior was difficult, and aside from partial clearing along rivers the forest remained intact. Deforestation accelerated greatly following the opening of highways deep into the forest, such as the Trans-Amazonian highway in 1972. In parts of the Amazon, the poor soil made plantation-based agriculture unprofitable.