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FACTOID!!
Koalas are marsupials, a mammal that carries its young in a pouch. They live in the Eucalyptus forests of Australia and they only eat the new leaves of a few different types of eucalypt trees. Koala's paws are hand-like, strong, and have very sharp claws to help them hold onto tree trunks and branches.


The Amazon - into the forest


The Amazon - into the forest
A few years ago, a Brazilian agronomist spoke to a correspondent of New Scientist‚ forcing the corespondent to think a little differently. The Brazilian agronomist told a story, imagining a different world history. What if the history of the world, had been different, and the Renaissance, explosion of scientific knowledge, and the agricultural revolution had taken place in a tropical country rather than Europe? Suppose that the Amazon was the breadbasket of the world, and that Amazonian ecologists started to hand out unwanted advice to other countries of the world, for instance, suggesting that places like the prairies of Iowa were worthless for the purpose of agriculture? What if the other countries said “we're not going to listen‿? That’s what the agronomist says now, “we’re not going to listen and we're going to develop the Amazon‿. The question we're left with is could the agronomist be right? As history has favoured the temperate regions, could the future lie with the tropics? Could the Amazon end up like Iowa one day?
21 SEPTEMBER 1996, P. 26-27
New Scientist
21 SEPTEMBER 1996, P. 26-27

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