Amazon River

Lost in the Amazon rain forest, Loren McIntyre stumbled into a clearing. Probably carved as a helicopter pad for an oil-exploration team, the rare opening might mean the explorer's salvation. Sunlight poured down, boiling the humid air. A double column of ants marched back and forth across the beckoning space. McIntyre followed the ants. At one end of the column he found a conical anthill. At the other he found the remains of four bodies. An arrow still protruded from the chest cavity of one.

Dorival Correia Bruni, chairman of a Brazilian environmental society known as Biosfera, is dedicated to preserving the Amazon rain forest, but he disagrees with an American-led boycott of tropical hardwoods as a deterrent to forest destruction. "That kind of action doesn't contribute, in practice, to the preservation of the forest," Bruni says. Americans and other foreigners, it seems, are forever admonishing Brazilians to stop chopping down Amazon trees.

A ferry carrying 400 people crashed into a moored oil tanker and overturned on a tributary of the Amazon River before dawn Monday. About 150 people are missing, a spokesman for the state oil company said. Another 250 passengers on board the ferry Chachita were rescued, said Jorge Merino, spokesman for the state oil company Petroperu. He said rescuers could hear people trapped inside the overturned boat hammering at the hull.

Any realistic reckoning of the most significant Brazilian artists of the '70s or '80s has to rank Milton Nascimento at or near the top. The 49-year-old performer, who has been called "the greatest musician alive," has worked with everyone from Paul Simon and James Taylor to Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, and his songs have been performed by Sarah Vaughan, the Manhattan Transfer and David Byrne.

The level of destruction of the Brazilian Amazon through burning and logging fell 65% this year, newspapers reported Monday. The National Environment Institute attributed the decline since 1989 to "Operation Amazon," a joint effort of the institute, the federal police and the armed forces to combat deforestation.

The government has approved a $3-billion plan to reforest part of the Amazon basin, officials said Wednesday. The plan, to be funded by Brazilian private industry and foreign contributions, envisages the reforestation of 2.5 million acres over 10 years in the eastern states of Para, Maranhao and Tocantins.

Thousands of gold prospectors expelled from Yanomami Indian lands have invaded other Amazon reserves and spread malaria among the tribes, an Indian chief said. The claim was made Thursday as representatives from 12 indigenous groups of the far-western Amazon state of Roraima came to the capital in search of medical aid. Makuxi Chief Jaci said about 8,000 invading gold miners are spreading malaria in his 12,000-member tribe.

The Amazon has been one of those fascinating locations that Hollywood has often gone to, without going there. In the old days, jungle sets were created on sound stages. But today's more sophisticated viewers expect the real thing and they got a pretty good look at the forests around Belem in John Boorman's 1985 "The Emerald Forest." With world attention focused on the South American rain forest, filmmakers are more anxious than ever to load up on inoculations and head for the jungle.

The sprawling, air-conditioned hotel at the edge of the Amazon forest teemed with ideas for saving the world's biggest tropical wilderness. It was a flourishing ecosystem of ideas, with the exuberance of a triple-canopy jungle, some ideas like towering trees, others like dense undergrowth and entwining vines.

Helio Pereira has prematurely gray hair at 34. It's from his job, he says with a smile. Pereira is responsible for controlling deforestation in Brazil's Amazon, a region 12 times the size of California. The responsibility is daunting, but Pereira reports remarkable success. According to his calculations, Amazon forest razed this year will total about 1.