The Yellow Eye Brow Frog is one of many species that are struggling to survive in the Amazon.

From the window of my plane I am marvelling at a grand serpent winding through a sea of endless green.

When I do land in Iquitos, gateway to the Amazon I am hit with a blast of heat and fresh oxygen which leaves me sweating instantly.

Creator of life, illusions and legends, the world’s longest and largest river was discovered in 1541 by Francisco de Orellana, though tribes have been existing in these jungles for thousands of years refining millenary secrets and traditions of the diverse plant and animal life.

It would only be a matter of time until modern man would exploit many of these mysteries that natives held sacred for generations.

Me, I’ve always wanted to experience the Amazon since I was a child. And now I was here, swimming with Pink River Dolphins, snagging Anacondas and Caiman, and watching Peruvian Pink-Toed Tarantulas tip-toe up huge Mangrove trees. My time with the Amazon was amazing, and I was usually grinning ear to ear.

But it soon became clear to me that this wealth of biodiversity was in distress: the traditional ways of life in the jungle, the sight of a mighty Jaguar, the caw of colourful Parrots high in lush canopies and the haunting shriek of Howler Monkeys in the distance. It’s all rapidly disappearing.

It’s due in part to an aggressive plan by the Peruvian Government and President Alan Garcia to attract private investment and boost the economy. More than 70% of the Peruvian Amazon has been slated for Oil and Gas exploration and exploitation. The after effects of drilling here could be devastating: contamination of the entire watershed in the jungle is possible.

It is already happening as Jennifer Colley Webb a researcher from Canada tells me “There are approximately 10 oil spills on the Corrientes River every year. This has led to the release of millions of barrels of crude oil into complex lagoons and swamps which make up the traditional hunting and fishing grounds of the Achuar people.”

“Petroleum extraction is toxic. It releases a myriad of neurotoxic chemicals into the watershed” she explains, “and regulation and monitoring of productions deep in the jungles of Peru is shady at best.”

Is water not a vital element for life? Shouldn’t it be worth more than oil, even more than gold?, If it is shouldn’t we protect and nurture it? Can we at least put in the proper monitoring systems and structures to help protect this amazingly delicate ecosystem?

Maybe we should let the people who live within the Amazon decide.

Tributaries of the Amazon are now clogged with weeds that were once eaten by Manatees. They have been hunted to extinction as early as 20 years ago.

The ratio of females to males born in the jungle is 7:1.

As development encroaches on wild jungle areas, animals such as the Jaguar are being driven out by human activity.