“Huge swathes of the Western Amazon were cleared 600 years ago, though back then it wasn’t for logging, it was to make way for an urban network of towns, villages and hamlets. This means that decent chunks – some 20,000 square kilometres – of the Western Amazon forest is not, strictly speaking, what could be called “virgin” forest. It is what took over after local cultures were wiped out by European settlers and imported diseases and their towns and villages were left untended.”