Lost cities discovered in the Amazon basin:
The combination of land cleared of its rainforest for grazing and satellite survey have revealed a sophisticated pre-Columbian monument-building society in the upper Amazon Basin on the east side of the Andes. This hitherto unknown people constructed earthworks of precise geometric plan connected by straight orthogonal roads. Introducing us to this new civilisation, the authors...also suggest that we have so far seen no more than a tenth of it.
Hang on, this means that the land was cleared not just during recent decades, but in ancient times as well. This means, too, that the rain forest is far more durable than is generally acknowledged.