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Map 1. Amazonia: cumulative pressure (RAISG, 2012)IntroduCTIONMap 2. Amazonia: cumulative threats (RAISG, 2012)The Amazonia presented in this publication is a territory with a huge socioenvironmentaldiversity now undergoing a process of rapid change. It covers anarea of 7.8 million km 2 , including 12 macro-basins and 158 sub-basins, shared by1,497 municipalities, 68 departments/states/provinces in eight countries: Bolivia(6.2%), Brasil (64.3%), Colombia (6.2%), Ecuador (1.5%), Guyana (2.8%), Perú(10.1%), Suriname (2.1%) and Venezuela (5.8%), as well as Guyane Française(1.1%). 1 Around 33 million people live in Amazonia, including 385 indigenouspeoples, as well as some living in ‘isolation.’ There are 610 PNAs and 2,344 ITsthat occupy 45% of the Amazonian surface area, without counting the small,medium and large rural landowners, various types of companies, research andsupport institutions, religious organizations and civil society organizations.This area results from boundaries agreed upon by RAISG members bycombining socio-environmental and juridical-administrative criteria, as explainedbelow, in order to define a spatial expression of the information and analyses.The geographical information system developed by RAISG has the flexibilityto allow products to be generated using other boundaries, such as thosedefined by hydrographic or biogeographic criteria, for example.Although countries like Bolivia, Brasil, Colombia, Ecuador and Perú definejuridical-administrative boundaries for their portions of Amazonia, publicpolicies do not reflect Amazonian socio-environmental particularities and are farfrom adopting the necessary (Pan-) Amazonian view and improving cooperationmechanisms.In all cases, there persists a view of Amazonia as a remote frontier providing‘infinite’ natural resources, with a demographic vacuum open to new forms offarming and extractivist colonization.This view has become more complex over the last 50 years with the newforms in which the region has been integrated into national and internationaleconomies. Amazonia is also now considered at national level as a territory capableof ensuring energy sovereignty and as a source of income based on theproduction and commercialization of raw materials. At the global level, the regionis seen as the most important source of fresh water and biodiversity, as a regulatorof the planet’s climate and as a carbon sink for large quantities of greenhousegases.Like the other products generated through the work of RAISG, the mainobjective of this publication is to overcome our fragmented views of Amazoniaand offer an ample panorama of the pressures and threats across the entireregion and other sub-units of analysis. The opposite page shows two mapsproviding a spatial illustration of the combined sum of pressures (map 1) andthreats (map 2).Pressures refers to the human actions currently taking place in Amazoniathat put at risk the integrity of the ecosystems and the collective and diffuse rightsof its inhabitants, whether traditional or otherwise.The threats are the human plans, projects or initiatives marked for the nearfuture, which may turn into pressures once implemented.In both cases RAISG’s members organized information under a set of prioritythemes mentioned in the preface, compiling and generating high qualityinformation that could be represented cartographically for the entire Amazonianregion.The present Atlas contains information on the following six themes, representingthe pressures and threats faced by Amazonia over the last decade– roads, oil and gas, hydroelectric plants, mining, fires and deforestation – analyzedin relation to Amazonia as a whole as well as to five different territorialunits: Amazonia in each country, Hydrographic Basins, Protected Natural Areas(PNAs), and Indigenous Territories (ITs). These analyses are supported by 55maps, 61 tables, 23 graphs, 16 boxes and 73 photographs. All this information isorganized in thematic chapters running to a total of 68 pages.It should be pointed out that it was not possible to include specific chapterson logging and farming – themes of great importance for a more complete evaluationof the pressures and threats on Amazonia – since no basic information onthem exists that covers the region as a whole. These themes will be discussed intwo boxes included in the present introduction.1 The RAISG workgroups decided to maintain the country names as written in their original languagesin all publications.RAISG 8Amazonia under PressureAmazoniaunder Pressure 9 RAISG