05 Jun
2006 - Brasilia, Brazil – Marking World Environment
Day, the Brazilian government has announced the
creation of a new mega-park, adding to further
protection of the Amazon.
The new Jureuna National Park,
covering an area of 1.8 million hectares, will
become Brazil’s third largest park, adding to
the protection of the southern Amazon conservation
corridor, which is home to jaguars, giant otters
and guariba monkeys.
“The creation of the national
park is one of the last missing pieces in the
southern Amazon conservation corridor," said
Denise Hamu, CEO of WWF-Brazil. “This corridor
is an important line of defense in controlling
land degradation and agricultural expansion in
an area that has seen some of the highest rates
of illegal logging and deforestation in recent
years.”
WWF-Brazil, together with local
partners, will embark on a three-week expedition
in June through the new national park to survey
the region’s unique biodiversity in an area where
the Amazonian savannah meets the forest.
In addition to the Jureuna National
Park, the Brazilian government also declared the
creation of the Rio Iriri Extractive Reserve,
an area of 400,000ha adjacent to the Terra do
Meio Mosiac.
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.
The creation of the Jureuna
National Park and Rio Iriri Extractive reserve
are part of the Amazon Region Protected Areas
(ARPA) Programme, a large-scale conservation programme
aimed at creating and supporting a system of well-managed
protected areas and sustainable natural resource
management reserves in the Amazon.
"We are making significant
advances within ARPA," said Hamu. "With
technical and financial support from WWF, we have
seen more than 20 million hectares protected in
the Amazon."
ARPA is a partnership between
the Brazilian government, the World Bank, Global
Environment Facility, German Development Bank,
Brazilian Biodiversity Fund and WWF. WWF-Brazil
has also supported the government initiatives
on public forest concessions and will continue
to do so, particularly with sustainable forestry
within protected areas.
