21/02/2005 – Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced
the creation of two new major protected
areas in the Amazon, making it one of the
world's most ambitious conservation efforts
to date.
The decision to protect 3.7 million hectares
in the Terra do Meio Ecological Station
(3.3 million ha) and the Serra do Pardo
National Park (445,000 ha) was made in an
effort to fight deforestation and land conflicts
in the Brazilian State of Para.
"Conservation in the Amazon takes
a giant step forward with this decree,"
said Carter Roberts, Chief Conservation
Officer with WWF-US. "With these two
critical pieces in place, we are creating
a mosiac of contiguous protected areas,
reserves, and indigenous territories connecting
the savannah ecosystem of the south to the
rain forests of the central Amazon."
The two new parks, totaling an area nearly
twice the size of the US State of Massachusetts,
are both located in the State of Para, the
region where Sister Dorothy Stang, an American
nun, was murdered 12 February because of
her outspoken efforts on behalf of landless
peasants and wildlife in the Amazon.
"Strict protection should help brake
the runaway deforestation and land tenure
conflicts in which Sister Dorothy was such
a courageous advocate, both for the poor
and for conservation," added Roberts.
"We congratulate President Lula for
his leadership in moving this forward."
Social and environmental organizations,
including WWF, have been pressing for the
creation of these new protected areas in
the Terra do Meio region for several years
as a way of easing conflicts over logging
and land use, protecting the rights of local
residents and conserving the irreplaceable
biodiversity of the Xingu river basin.
The creation of the mosaic establishes
an ecological corridor of 25 million hectares
in the Xingu river basin, connecting the
Cerrado Savannah and Amazon Forest ecosystems
through parks, reserves and indigenous land.
"Creating these protected areas is
a vital measure to stop deforestation and
pacify land conflicts in the region,"
said Rosa Lemos de Sá, WWF-Brazil's
Conservation Director.
"A corridor this size will guarantee
the maintenance of long-term ecological
processes, as well as the basis needed for
the maintenance of evolutionary processes
of species in the Xingu river basin."
Threatened species include jaguars, macaws,
and harpy eagles, animals that all require
large areas of rainforest for their survival.
Notes:
• WWF assisted the parks' creation by providing
scientific and technical advice in their
design and by supporting stakeholder consultations
to ensure that the rights and needs of local
inhabitants were incorporated into the conservation
planning.
• The Terra do Meio Ecological Station
and the Serra do Pardo National Park will
benefit from the Amazon Protected Areas
Programme (ARPA), whose main goal is to
establish a network of protected areas to
help protect a significant sample of biological
diversity in the Amazon biome.
• During Phase I (2003-2006), ARPA has
a goal of creating 9 million hectares of
total protection conservation units to secure
protection of biodiversity. With the creation
of the Terra do Meio Ecological Station
and the Serra do Pardo National Park, ARPA
has reached 8.5 million hectares of total
protection conservation units, almost the
total figure projected as its objective.
• In addition to this, the programme also
aims at this stage to create another 9 million
hectares of sustainable use conservation
units, as is the case with extractive reserves,
which allow for the economic use of natural
resources as long as adequate management
plans are presented. With the Riozinho da
Liberdade Extractive Reserve, the government
has already created 5.4 million hectares
of units in this category integrated to
ARPA.
• The programme also plans to consolidate,
by 2006, 7 million hectares of protected
areas which existed previously. Coordinated
by the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment
and the Brazilian Institute for the Environment,
the programme is implemented in partnership
with State governments, the Brazilian Fund
for Biodiversity (Funbio), World Bank, German
Development Banks, and WWF-Brazil.
