Hi, I'm Alex Gallafent, a reporter with PRI's The World.

I recently spent ten days in the middle of the Amazon rainforest - a truly remarkable place. Here's the question: how can countries that straddle the Amazon develop economically while at the same time keeping the rainforest intact?



Over the next few days and weeks, I'll take you to an opera house nestling in the rainforest, to a surreal oil and gas facility hundreds of miles into the jungle (watch my plane landing here) and to the heart of one of the most sensitive, controversial regions on the planet.

• Listen to my radio stories
• Get lost in my photos from the rainforest
• Watch creepy-crawlies and other videos
• Catch up with my on-the-ground blog
• And follow my daily progress via Twitter

Three big reasons why the Amazon rainforest matters:

• It plays a critical role in shaping the world's climate
• The region is a possible tipping point for pushing the world into much warmer temperatures, according to many scientists
• It's an extraordinary store of biodiversity, home to around a quarter of all the earth's terrestrial species

I recommend this useful Q&A about the Amazon Paradox from my colleagues at the BBC.

That's also the name of the BBC World Service's special Amazon coverage, which concentrates on deforestation in the Amazon.