The historical center of Belém with the contemporary city skyline in the background.
Photographer: Stefan KolumbanPerspective
The Amazon Rainforest Is Urban, Too
South America’s vast rainforest isn’t just flora and fauna. Tens of millions of people live in cities that are neglected and overlooked.
This is the first article in a series on the challenges and opportunities of the urban Amazon.
Forget for a moment the postcard rainforest with its ten-story trees, dripping lianas and braces of brilliantly painted macaws streaking over the canopy. The precarity of this extraordinary tropical biome’s flora and fauna is only part of the Amazon story.