Brazzil
September 2002
Ecology
Telling that this was Brazil's contribution to the World Summit on Sustainable Development President held in Johannesburg, South Africa, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso announced on August 22 the creation of the largest rainforest national park in the world. The new green sanctuary covers 9.4 million acres—an area the size of Switzerland or Taiwan—of the Amazon along the border with Surinam and Guyana. This represents 1 percent of the Amazon and, according to the government, is just the first step of a more ambitious program, which will preserve 10 percent of the region.
The Tumucumaque National Park shelters 12 percent of all primates living in the Brazilian Amazon like the black spider monkeys as well as jaguars, sloths, giant armadillos, anteaters and harpy owls. Scientists believe that at least eight primate species, 350 bird species and 37 types of lizard live in the park. A number of environmental groups helped create the park, including the World Wide Fund for Nature and Conservation International.
Tumucumaque means "the rock on top of the mountain" in the language of the Apalai and Wayana Indians. The park is part of a package containing six environmental protection measures. Tumucumaque park is 568,000 acres larger than Slonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, previously the world's largest tropical park.
According to the official news agency Agência Brasil, from 1995 to 2000, Brazil almost doubled the green area it protects, from 15.3 million hectares to 29.5 million (135,600 square kilometers to 174,500 square kilometers in forestlands).
"With the creation of Tumucumaque Mountains National Park, we are ensuring the protection of one of the most pristine forests remaining in the world," President Cardoso said. "Plants and animals that may be endangered elsewhere will continue to thrive in our forests forever."
Cardoso also signed several laws regulating the use of genetic material gathered from Brazil's immense variety of plant and animal species. A number of environmental groups helped create the park, including the World Wide Fund for Nature and Conservation International.
"The park is very important because it helps consolidate one of the world's last roadless wildernesses," said Roberto Cavalcanti, director of Conservation International in Brazil. "Much of the Amazon is still wild, but there are roads running through it."
In much of the Amazon, roads have accelerated destruction of the forest by providing access for settlers, prospectors and loggers. Deforestation has destroyed about 15 percent of Brazil's Amazon rainforest, which today covers about 1.35 million square miles.
"This park today looks much like it would have hundreds of years ago, since Tumucumaque has not been deforested," said José Maria Cardoso da Silva, Conservation International's Director for Amazonia.
"I don't have any doubt the park will yield new species," said Josë Pedro de Oliveira Costa, secretary for biodiversity and forests at Brazil's Environment Ministry. Costa hopes millions of dollars in promised funding from the World Bank and Global Environmental Facility will help Tumucumaque avoid the fate of other parks in the Amazon, where a shortage of forest rangers and infrastructure has made parks vulnerable to illegal mining and logging and virtually inaccessible to the general public.
Initially, the park will be open only to scientists, who will study how best to combine tourism with preservation.
"This is an opportunity that doesn't come along very often," said Garo Batmanian, chief executive officer of the World Wild Fund for Nature. "Because most of the land in the Amazon is still in the government's hands, the environment can still have a vision for zoning the Amazon."
Some observers are skeptical towards the project pointing that the development agency for Amazon is involved in a corruption scandal and will be able to do very little in this climate.