She went on. “Charlene, you’ve spent time in Brazil and Colombia. How many trees and how many tree species would you say grow in Amazonia?” “My God, who knows! The diversity is so great and the different species so scattered—” Tom interrupted. “I read the Field Museum’s report last year that said sixteen thousand species and I don’t remember how many million trees.” Sapatisia nodded. “And they estimate around three hundred and ninety billion individual trees in the Amazon basin.” Tom looked at her. “How the hell can we understand those numbers? North America only has one thousand species.
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