The Amazon forest is the world’s largest tropical rain forest. It occupies one-third of Brazil’s land area and receives over 80 inches (200 centimeters) of rain a year. The rain forest loses 15,000 square miles (38,850 square kilometers) of forest each year because of clear-cutting. The Amazon rain forest is home to about 90 percent of the Earth’s animal and plant species and is a major producer of the world’s oxygen.