The Amazon is home to many indigenous people and at least 10% of the world’s known plant and animal species, representing the richest biodiversity of any ecosystem on the planet. Those forests also act as a critical defense against global warming because they absorb so much carbon dioxide — cumulatively they hold about a decade’s worth of the planet’s emissions, Paulo Moutinho of the Woods Hole Research Center told The Washington Post. “If you continue to deforest … you are releasing this huge amount of carbon to the atmosphere,” he said.