Amazon: Land of the Flooded Forest. - video recording reviews

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1994 by Robert S. Rothenberg

Columbia TriStar Home Video 58 minutes / $19.95

For six months of the year, the forests on either bank of the Amazon River are inundated by floodwaters, turning them into a strange amalgam wherein fish swim among the treetops and animals forage for food beneath the surface. Each species has learned to live within this strange environment, their normal existences turned upside down. Nevertheless, it is an eerie sensation watching fish leaping from the water to snatch insects or fruit from tree limbs that, before the flooding, would be 50 feet above the forest floor.

Next to Australia, the Amazon Basin probably contains the most varied assortment of creatures on Earth, from the world's largest rodent to the smallest monkey. This National Geographic video follows biologist Michael Goulding, who has catalogued more than 2,000 species of fish, at least 40 newly discovered, as he explores the flooded forest by boat and canoe. Behind the wonders he uncovers, there is a sense of desperation, as more and more of the Amazon forests are falling victim to those who are razing it for lumber or to develop land for settlement. With entire species disappearing as a result of man's continued despoilation of the planet, this may be among the last records of one of nature's mysterious treasure troves.