New Guinea Rainforest

The New Guinea Rainforest covers much of the island of New Guinea, divided between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, and forms the third-largest expanse of contiguous tropical rainforest on Earth after the Amazon and Congo basins. Its rugged, mountainous terrain and relative isolation have produced extraordinary levels of biodiversity and endemism, including a huge diversity of bird-of-paradise species, and much of the forest remains among the least explored on the planet. The forest is drained by major rivers including the Sepik and Fly, and it faces increasing pressure from logging and agricultural expansion.