More life hums, buzzes, chatters, and bubbles in the Amazon Rainforest than anywhere else on the planet. One Amazonian tree can host more ant species than all the British Isles put together, one hectare of forest boasts about as many frog species as all of North America and the great expanse of the jungle contains more than twenty percent of the earth’s vascular plant species. Here you can find a monkey small enough to sit on your fingertip, an eight-pound toad, a spider that eats birds and the world’s largest snake, the 30-foot anaconda.

The Amazon is home to thousands of indigenous inhabitants, who make up nearly 200 distinct nations, including the Siona, Secoya, Cofan, Shuar, Zaparo, Huaorani and Quichua. Having lived there for more than 10,000 years, they know its trees, its animals, and its rhythms better than anyone. Sip.

Oil companies are a serious threat to the rainforest today. Even at lodges deep in the jungle, plumes of smoke coming from oil refineries smudge the otherwise untouched horizon day and night. You can learn more about indigenous forest peoples and the rainforest itself joining one of the many community-based eco-tourism programs offered in the Ecuadorian Amazon or by becoming a volunteer with one of the many nonprofits working in the region.