Human Occupation
Amazonia is very sparsely populated. There are scattered settlements inland, but most of the population lives in a few larger cities on the banks of the Amazon and other major rivers, such as in Iquitos (Peru), Manaus and Belém (Brazil). In many regions, the forest has been cleared for soy bean plantations and ranching (the most extensive non-forest use of the land) and some of the inhabitants harvest wild rubber latex and Brazil nuts. This is a form of extractive farms, where the trees are not cut down, and thus this is a relatively sustainable human impact.
The largest organization fighting for the indigenous peoples in this area is COICA, which is a supraorganization emcompassing all indigenous rights organizations working in the Amazon Basin area, living in several countries.
Read more about this topic: Amazon Basin
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“For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer’s day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.”
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