Amazon rainforest major threat to the Amazon rainforest. The highway still has not been completed, limiting the environmental damage. Between 1991 and 2000, the total area of forest lost in the Amazon rose from , with most of the lost forest becoming pasture for cattle. Seventy percent of formerly forested land in the Amazon, and 91% of land deforested since 1970, is used for livestock pasture. Currently, Brazil is the second-largest global producer of soybeans after the United States. New research however, conducted by Leydimere Oliveira et al., has shown that the more rainforest is logged in the Amazon, the less precipitation
Amazon biome form barriers to the geodispersal of plants, animals and even insects. Thus the white-fronted capuchin ("Cebus albifrons") and hairy saki ("Pithecia hirsuta") are found west of the Tapajós, while the white-nosed saki ("Chiropotes albinasus") is only found east of the river. The World Wildlife Fund divides the biome into ecoregions, often defined as the regions lying between major tributaries of the Amazon. Most of the interior of the Amazon basin is covered by rainforest. The dense tropical Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. It covers between of the Amazon biome. The somewhat vague numbers are because