Basic HTML Version
The Amazing Amazon-
FUTURE
BREADBASKET
OF THE WORLD?
Wi/1 today's
ST
ARVING
MASSES be saved by grow–
ing
food
in the two–
and-one-half-million-acre
Amazon Basin?
Can
the
wealth
of
this vast jungle
frontier be unlocked?
Here
are
the little-understood,
on–
the-spot
answers
reported
by
our
own
staff.
by
Charles V. Oorothy
!quitos, Pecu
T
HREE-FOOT-HIGH
waves lash our
little launch. Gray, chill water
threatens to swamp our boat as
ominous fog doses in - cutting us off
from the distant shore.
The five Italians and I would nor–
mally not
be
so frightened by tbree-foot
waves, stinging rain and fog, except for
severa! strange facts: We are not at sea.
W e are nearly 3,000 miJeJ
ttp
the Ama–
zon
River
...
lost in the fog ... maybe
miles from the river banks!
Anxious Moments
Lost forever in the Amazon jun–
gle . . .
oc
only stalled by a tropical
storm? This chilling question caces
through my mind as I grip the gun-
King Leopotcl
Photo
THE RIO NEGRO -
a vast tributary of the Amazon- is only one small part
of the gigantic river system that drains the bosin, on oreo of neorly three
million squore miles.
wales, hunching forward under a plastic
tarp to avoid the splattering rain, eyes
straining to see the ghostly outline of
green banks. No land in sight! Only
swirling fog and the jarring thumps
of our launch against angry saw-toothed
waves.
"How can we get out of here ?"
"Head for shore," 1 think, "and hope
we don't hang up on a sandbar in the
middle of the river.
" ... Swimming's no good .. . there
may be man-eating piranha fish here!
Well, certainly we can find the opposite
bank," I reassure myself ( trying not to
remember that the bank I saw three
miles opposite !quitos was only an
iJJand -
the real bank was seven miles