On 13 October 1972, in the central region of the Andes located between Argentina and Chile, an aeroplane carrying forty-five people crashed due to a navigation error. Seventy-two days after the crash, two young survivors appeared on the banks of the Andean mountain river Azufre, just when everyone had lost hope and had given up searching for the plane and its survivors.
Never in history has urban sprawl been so great. Every day the urban population grows by 200 000 people worldwide. Every month, a city the size of Santiago de Chile is born. For the first time ever, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban centres.
Forests occupy approximately 22% of South America, and represent about 27% of the world’s global forest coverage. They play an important role in the carbon budget (i.e. the contribution of carbon dioxide on the planet) and in the economy of Latin American countries, as well as other parts of the world.
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