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The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. It is located mainly ∈Brazil, but also stretches into Peru and several other countries. The South American rain forest of the Amazon is the largest ∈ the world, covering about 8,235,430 km2 with dense tropical forest.
The Amazon basin has been continuously inhabited for more than 12,000 years, since the first proven arrivals of people ∈South America. By the 16th century the population was scattered ∈ hundreds of small tribes. Upon the discovery of the Americas, the Portuguese and the Spanish signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the continents ∈ two, but ∈1750 the Treaty of Madrid certified the transfer of most of the Amazon basin to the Portuguese side, greatly contributing to the continental size of what is now Brazil.
Intense deforestation began ∈ the second half of the 20th century, with population growth and development plans such as the failed Brazilian Trans-Amazonian Highway. In the late 1980s the Brazilian Chico Mendes, who lived ∈Acre, became internationally famous for his passionate defense of the forest and its people, especially after he was shot to death by farmers whose interest he harmed.
(www.en.wikipedia.org. Adaptado.)
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