The Atlantic Rainforest
Forest type: Tropical
Geographic location: Coastal Brazil
Threats: Logging, agricultural clearing, excessive vegetation removal, pollution
At Risk: Only 5 percent of the original Atlantic Rainforest is left, and just a fraction of this vestige can be considered frontier. The Atlantic Rainforest is particularly rich in biodiversity: 70 percent of its plants and most of its 20 primate species are found nowhere else in the world, and the wild relatives of many important food crops (including pineapple, cassava, sweet potato, and papaya) are found there.
Coastal Chilean Forests
Forest type: Temperate
Geographic location: Southern Chile
Threats: Clearing for plantations, logging for the wood-chip industry, fuelwood production
At Risk: One third of the world's largest tract of relatively undisturbed temperate forest. Chile's temperate forests contain at least 50 species of timber trees (95 percent of them endemic) and more than 700 vascular plant species (half of them endemic). The alerce cedar, the Southern Hemisphere's largest conifer and a tree that can live over 3,000 years, is found here. More than 35,000 families in this region face severe poverty and expulsion as large timber companies buy land for wood-chip production and tree plantations.
Bolívar State
Forest type: Tropical
Geographic location: Southeastern Venezuela
Threats: Logging, mining (gold and diamonds), and oil exploration.
At Risk: Venezuela's Bolívar State is a part of the Guyana Shield-Amazon Basin complex, the largest tropical frontier forest. Rich in species, the area is home to the Pemón and several other indigenous groups.