The Chapada Limpa Extractive Reserve ( pt, Reserva Extrativista Chapada Limpa) is an

extractive reserve An extractive reserve ( pt, Reserva Extrativista or RESEX) is a type of sustainable use protected area in Brazil. The land is publicly owned, but the people who live there have the right to traditional extractive practices, such as hunting, fishi ...

in the state of

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...

, Brazil.

Location

The Chapada Limpa Extractive Reserve is in the municipality of Chapadinha,

. It has an area of . The reserve is in the Chapadinha (Alto Munim) microregion of the Leste Maranhense mesoregion, on the frontier of soybean monoculture in the state. It is in the

Munim River The Munim River ( pt, Rio Munim) is a river of Maranhão state in northeastern Brazil. It flows north for about before emptying into the Baía de São José to the south of the state capital. The river has suffered from agricultural pollution and ...

basin and is drained by tributaries of the Iguará, Mocambo and Preto rivers and various intermittent streams. The terrain contains areas of plateau and slopes, with remains of

caatinga Caatinga (, ) is a type of semi-arid tropical vegetation, and an ecoregion characterized by this vegetation in interior northeastern Brazil. The name "Caatinga" is a Tupi word meaning "white forest" or "white vegetation" (''caa'' = forest, v ...

and many swamps and waterways. It has species typical of the

cerrado The ''Cerrado'' (, ) is a vast ecoregion of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, and the Federal District. The core areas of the Cerrado biome are the ...

, the Amazon and the

biome.

Economy

The reserve contains the traditional communities of Chapada Limpa I, Chapada Limpa II, Califórnia, Juçaral, Mata, Morada Nova, Porco Magro, Prata, Quatro Bocas, Roça Velha, Saco, Santana, São Gabriel, São Martins and Severo. In 2016 the Ministry of the Environment said there were 116 registered families with 531 people organized into five neighbourhood associations. The population density was 4.43 inhabitants per km². Residents in the lower parts of the reserve extract

babassu ''Attalea speciosa'', the babassu, babassu palm, ''babaçu, or cusi'', is a palm native to the Amazon Rainforest region in South America. The babassu palm is the predominant species in the Maranhão Babaçu forests of Maranhão and Piauí states. ...

for income, and use the juçara,

buriti ''Mauritia flexuosa'', known as the moriche palm, ''ité'' palm, ''ita'', ''buriti'', ''muriti'', ''miriti'' (Brazil), ''canangucho'' (Colombia), ''acho'' (Ecuador), or ''aguaje'' (Peru), is a palm tree. It grows in and near swamps and other wet ...

and

bacaba ''Oenocarpus bacaba'' is an economically important monoecious fruiting palm native to South America and the Amazon Rainforest, which has edible fruits. This plant is cited in Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. It can reach ...

palms typical of the wetland environment for family use. They also practice subsistence agriculture, growing rice, beans and corn.

History

The Chapada Limpa Extractive Reserve was created by federal decree on 26 September 2007 with an area of to protect the livelihoods and ensure the use and conservation of renewable natural resources used traditionally by the residents. The region had for years been an area of conflict between the traditional extractive population and soybean agribusinesses. The reserve conserved part of one of the most threatened biomes in the country. It was the first extractive reserve in the cerrado biome in Maranhão. It is administered by the federal

Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (Portuguese: ''Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade'', ICMBio) is the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment's administrative arm."Brazilian Federal Law 11.516/2007 (Por ...

(ICMBio). The reserve is classed as

IUCN protected area category IUCN protected area categories, or IUCN protected area management categories, are categories used to classify protected areas in a system developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The enlisting of such areas is par ...

VI (protected area with sustainable use of natural resources). Its objectives are to protect the livelihoods and ensure the use and conservation of renewable natural resources traditionally used by the extractive population. On 12 November 2008 the

Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária The Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária - INCRA (''National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform'') is a federal government authority of the public administration of Brazil. INCRA administers the land reform issues. ...

(INCRA – National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform) recognised the reserve as meeting the needs of 62 families, who would qualify for

PRONAF The agriculture of Brazil is historically one of the principal bases of Brazil's economy. While its initial focus was on sugarcane, Brazil eventually became the world's largest exporter of coffee, soybeans, beef, and crop-based ethanol. The s ...

support. This was modified on 19 November 2008 to read 122 families. The deliberative council was created on 17 May 2011. The management agreement was approved on 29 February 2016.

Notes

Sources

* * * * {{authority control 2007 establishments in Brazil Extractive reserves of Brazil Protected areas of Maranhão