tag:news.mongabay.com,2005:/xml/steps_to reducing your environmental impact1 2009-01-27T15:44:57Z tag:news.mongabay.com,2005:Article/2081 2007-06-03T14:30:00Z 2009-01-27T15:44:57Z <table align="left"><tr><td><img src="http://photos.mongabay.com/07/0530dan_nepstad_1a.jpg" align="left"/></td></tr></table>The Amazon basin is home to the world's largest rainforest, an ecosystem that supports perhaps 30 percent of the world's terrestrial species, stores vast amounts of carbon, and exerts considerable influence on global weather patterns and climate. Few would dispute that it is one of the planet's most important landscapes. Despite its scale, the Amazon is also one of the fastest changing ecosystems, largely as a result of human activities, including deforestation, forest fires, and, increasingly, climate change. Few people understand these impacts better than Dr. Daniel Nepstad, one of the world's foremost experts on the Amazon rainforest. Now head of the Woods Hole Research Center's Amazon program in Belem, Brazil, Nepstad has spent more than 23 years in the Amazon, studying subjects ranging from forest fires and forest management policy to sustainable development. Nepstad says the Amazon is presently at a point unlike any he's ever seen, one where there are unparalleled risks and opportunities. While he's hopeful about some of the trends, he knows the Amazon faces difficult and immediate challenges. Rhett Butler