The Grão-Pará Ecological Station ( pt, Estação Ecológica Grão-Pará is a strictly protected
ecological station in the state of
Pará
Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana ...
, Brazil.
It managed by the state of Pará. With of well-preserved
Amazon rainforest it is the largest fully protected tropical forest conservation unit in the world.
Location
![Protected areas of northern Para state](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Protected_areas_of_northern_Para_state.svg)
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station is on the left bank of the
Amazon River in the west of the state of
Pará
Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana ...
.
It contains parts of the basins of the
Maicuru,
Curuá
Curuá is a municipality in the state of Pará in the Northern region of Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and w ...
,
Cuminapanema,
Erepecuru,
Trombetas
The Trombetas is a large river on the northern side of the Amazon River.
Course
The Trombetas is long, and is navigable by 500 ton vessels for a stretch of . The Trombetas river gives birth to very many rivers, including the Anamu river.
It is ...
and
Mapuera rivers.
It has an area of , which makes it the largest fully protected tropical forest conservation unit on the planet.
The unit covers parts of the municipalities of
Oriximiná
Oriximiná is the westernmost and second-largest (by territorial area) municipality in the Brazilian state of Pará. It is also the fourth-largest in the country.
Location
The city lies on the Trombetas river, northwest of Óbidos. The city i ...
(75.89%),
Alenquer (13.31%),
Óbidos (7.36%) and
Monte Alegre (3.44%).
Its boundaries are:
*North:
Tumucumaque Mountains National Park
The Tumucumaque Mountains National Park ( pt, Parque Nacional Montanhas do Tumucumaque; ) is situated in the Amazon Rainforest in the Brazilian states of Amapá and Pará. It is bordered to the north by French Guiana and Suriname.
History
Tum ...
and
Guyana.
*East: Tumucumaque National Park Indian Territory, Rio Paru D'Este Indian Territory and
Maicuru Biological Reserve
The Maicuru Biological Reserve ( pt, Reserva Biológica Maicuru), is a strictly protected biological reserve in the state of Pará, Brazil.
It covers of Amazon rainforest.
Location
The reserve lies between the Maicuru and Jari rivers on the ...
.
*South: Trombetas-Mapuera Indian Territory,
Trombetas State Forest
The Trombetas State Forest ( pt, Floresta Estadual do Trombetas) is a state forest in the state of Pará, Brazil.
Location
The Trombetas State Forest is divided between the municipalities of Oriximiná (87.91%), Óbidos (10.27%) and Alenquer ( ...
, Zo'é Indian Territory and
Paru State Forest
The Border Patrol Police ( th, ตำรวจตระเวนชายแดน); (BPP) is a Thai paramilitary police under the jurisdiction of the Royal Thai Police, responsible for border security and counterinsurgency.
History
The Thai Bo ...
.
*West: State of
Roraima.
History
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station was established by state decree 2609 of 4 December 2006, signed by the state governor
Simão Jatene
Simão Robison Oliveira Jatene is the former Governor of the Brazilian state of Pará
Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Toca ...
.
The unit was announced by Jatene in a ceremony that announced nine conservation areas, mostly in northern Pará that occupy a total of about . Others included the
Maicuru Biological Reserve
The Maicuru Biological Reserve ( pt, Reserva Biológica Maicuru), is a strictly protected biological reserve in the state of Pará, Brazil.
It covers of Amazon rainforest.
Location
The reserve lies between the Maicuru and Jari rivers on the ...
, the Paru, Trombetas, Faro and Iriri state forests and the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area.
Creation of the protected areas was expected to reduce deforestation, mining and consequent mercury contamination of water, poaching, irregular farming and other threats.
Within two months of creation of the strictly protected unit it was reported that the
Rio Tinto Rio Tinto, meaning "red river", may refer to:
Businesses
* Rio Tinto (corporation), an Anglo-Australian multinational mining and resources corporation
** Rio Tinto Alcan, based in Canada
** Rio Tinto Borax in America
*** Rio Tinto Borax Mine, ...
mining company was seeking approval to have excluded from the unit. The miner had been prospecting for
bauxite
Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO ...
near the headwaters of the Curuá River, and thought there might be a huge deposit.
It seemed unlikely that the permission would be given since this would throw into doubt the state's entire environmental plan.
In 2007, the Pará Secretary of State for the Environment signed a Term of Technical Cooperation with the
Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi
The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG) is a Brazilian research institution and museum located in the city of Belém, state of Pará, Brazil. It was founded in 1866 by Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna as the Pará Museum of Natural History and Ethn ...
, Forest Development Institute of Pará, Institute of Man and Environment,
Conservation International and the German Technical Cooperation Agency.
These institutions worked together to develop the management plan for the implementation of the reserve, published in 2011.
The Management Plan is based on the general objectives for a conservation unit, and establishes standards for use of the area and management of natural resources, including implementation of the physical structures needed to manage the unit.
Environment
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station covers
dissected plateau
A dissected plateau is a plateau area that has been severely eroded such that the relief is sharp. Such an area may be referred to as mountainous, but dissected plateaus are distinguishable from orogenic mountain belts by the lack of folding, ...
s with altitudes from .
Most of the region has altitudes of .
The lowest areas are in the north near the Trombetas River, while the highest are in the northwest in the
Serra do Acari region at and in the southern portion at .
The terrain is rugged, with no access roads or fully navigable rivers.
The unit can be reached only by helicopter or light air plane using improvised landing strips.
It is known that indigenous people access it through the Trombetas and Erepecuru river regions.
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station is in the
Amazon biome.
It has a tropical monsoon climate.
Temperatures range from and are usually between .
Average annual rainfall is from , with heaviest rains on the December–May period when monthly precipitation is .
Even in the driest months rainfall is above .
The unit contains parts of two sub-basins of the
Amazon River, the Nhamundá-Trombetas basin and the Cuminapanema-Maicuru sub-basin.
The main rivers of the unit have combined lengths of .
The unit is mostly covered with dense submontane rainforest (89.43%) or transitional forest (8.9%), with small areas of
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 ...
(0.79%) and dense alluvial rainforest (0.01%).
Known numbers of species include 125 fish, 62 amphibians, 68 reptiles, 355 birds, 61 mammals, 125 ferns and 653 flowering plants.
The natural resources are well preserved.
Conservation
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station allows only indirect use of its natural resources, and has the specific purpose of conserving nature and supporting scientific research.
Public visits are prohibited except for educational purposes subject to the Management Plan, and scientific research requires prior permission of SEMA/PA.
It lies entirely within the Pará Northern Corridor Full Protection Zone (Zona de Proteção Integral da Calha Norte Paraense).
With the other protected areas and indigenous lands in the region it connects the
Central Amazon Ecological Corridor
The Central Amazon Ecological Corridor ( pt, Corredor Ecológico Central da Amazônia) is an ecological corridor in the state of Amazonas, Brazil, that connects a number of conservation units in the Amazon rainforest. The objective is to mainta ...
to the west with the
Amapá corridor to the east.
The conservation unit is supported by the
Amazon Region Protected Areas Program.
Notes
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Grao-Para Ecological Station
2006 establishments in Brazil
Protected areas of Pará
Ecological stations of Brazil
Protected areas established in 2006