HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Guajará Bay ( Portuguese: ''Baía do Guajará'') is formed by the confluence of the mouths of the
Guamá Guamá (died on June 6, 1533) was a Taíno rebel chief who led a rebellion against Spanish rule in Cuba in the 1530s. Legend states that Guamá was first warned about the Spanish conquistador by Hatuey, a Taíno cacique from the island of Hispa ...
and Acará rivers, which border the municipalities of Barcarena and
Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará), often called Belém of Pará, is the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of B ...
, the capital of
Pará Pará () is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian st ...
. Its waters flow into Marajó Bay and end in the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
.


History

Formerly called Paraná-Guaçu by the Tupinambás people who inhabited the region, Guajará Bay was the gateway for the Portuguese who wanted to occupy the Captaincy of Grão-Pará. According to the
Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian (geography) ...
, the land belonged to
Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
, but the territories were unified by the
Iberian Union The Iberian Union is a historiographical term used to describe the period in which the Habsburg Spain, Monarchy of Spain under Habsburg dynasty, until then the personal union of the crowns of Crown of Castile, Castile and Crown of Aragon, Aragon ...
at the time. On January 12, 1616, three vessels, the patache ''Santa Maria da Candelária'', the '' caravelão'' ''Santa Maria das Graças'', and the large speedboat ''Assunção'', docked where the city of Belém (known as Mairi by the natives) is today. On board were 150 men, including Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco, Discoverer and First Conqueror of the Amazon (his title at the time), who called the place Feliz Lusitânia. On the site, the engineer-major Francisco Frias Mesquita began the construction, on the east bank of the bay, of the Forte do Presépio, the starting point for the foundation of the city of Santa Maria de Belém do Grão-Pará. In the following years, the bay was the scene of several battles between the Portuguese, English, Dutch and French. None of these groups managed to settle in the region and were forced to seek land further north, in the
Guianas The Guianas, also spelled Guyanas or Guayanas, are a geographical region in north-eastern South America. Strictly, the term refers to the three Guianas: Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, formerly British Guiana, British, Surinam (Dutch colo ...
.


Environment

Guajará Bay is home to several ecosystems, such as
mangroves A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen and remove sal ...
, igapós (flooded forests) and floodplain areas. The surrounding vegetation is mainly
tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...
. In addition to its ecological importance, the bay is also very relevant to the local economy. It is used for the navigation of large vessels, which transport goods and passengers, and for fishing, a common activity in the region, with emphasis on artisanal fishing, carried out by traditional communities dependent on the bay's resources.


Fishing

Considered to be the most important activity for the Tupinambás, fishing in Guajará Bay represented the survival of this indigenous population. After the arrival of the Portuguese, the activity intensified, and until the beginning of the rubber cycle in 1879, it formed the basis of the local economy. Even today, fish from the Guajará Bay are very present in the Pará's traditional cuisine in a variety of dishes, such as Pirarucu, considered by many to be the
cod Cod (: cod) is the common name for the demersal fish genus ''Gadus'', belonging to the family (biology), family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gad ...
of the
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
.


River Círio

A river procession takes place on the waters of Guajará Bay every year as part of the Círio de Nazaré celebrations. Created in 1985, the pilgrimage gives riverside dwellers, fishermen and sailors on the bay an opportunity to pay homage to Our Lady of Nazareth, the patron saint of Pará. Leaving from the port of Icoaraci, hundreds of boats accompany the ship carrying the image of the saint to the
port of Belém The Port of Belém was built in 1909 and is located in the neighborhood of Reduto, in the city of Belém, capital of Pará, on the right bank of Guajará Bay, about 120 km from the Atlantic Ocean. It was designed in 1897 and the first stretch ...
on a journey that lasts around five hours. Throughout the route, the saint receives homage from the faithful and several rounds of fireworks.


Tourist attractions

Currently, tourism is the most important economic activity in the region. The shores of Guajará Bay offer many options, from historical tours to places of natural beauty.


Ver-o-Peso

The so-called Casas do Ver-o-Peso were created in Brazil in 1614, in
Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...
, to accurately measure the weight of any goods and collect the tax. In Belém, it was built in 1625 for the same purpose, but was closed down in 1839. Years later, after several changes to the site, the Ver-o-peso Market was created and the city's largest open-air market flourished around it. The structure was built by La Rocque Pinto & Cia., which won a public tender in 1897, and has an area of 1,197 m2 in the shape of a dodecagon. The estimated weight of the structure is 1,133,389 tons and the metal structure is made of ''
vieille-montagne Vieille Montagne () was a zinc mine in Kelmis (La Calamine), a town in Belgium between Liège and Aachen. The mine's name is French for "old mountain" or "old mine", and this is also reflected in its German name, (earlier, ). The mine was once a ...
'' zinc.


Mosqueiro

The Mosqueiro Island, where Vila do Mosqueiro is located, is an 11,000-hectare piece of land to the north of the city of Belém and one of the region's biggest tourist attractions with around 17 km of beaches. The name ''Mosqueiro'' came from the process of preserving fish created by the Tupinambás indigenous people who inhabited the region, called ''moqueio''.


Mangal das Garças

Built on the banks of the Guamá River, Mangal das Garças covers an area of 64,300 m2. It is located 3 km from the center of Belém, in the Cidade Velha neighborhood, and was completely renovated. The park was designed and built in harmony with nature and the local biodiversity. Visitors can find wading birds, teals and native turtles, as well as a huge variety of Amazonian plant species. The viewpoint provides a panoramic view of Guajará Bay and the historic center of Belém.


Management challenges

Like many coastal areas around the world, Guajará Bay faces environmental challenges. Water pollution, mangrove degradation and siltation are some of the problems affecting the area. These issues are the result of the disorderly occupation of the shores, the lack of adequate basic sanitation and unregulated human activity in the region. Government authorities and environmental organizations have been working hard to protect and preserve Guajará Bay, implementing conservation, monitoring and environmental awareness measures. Actions such as cleaning up the water, reforesting degraded areas and creating conservation units are some of the initiatives underway to preserve this important ecosystem.


Gallery

File:Baía do Guajará 02.jpg, View of Mangal das Garças. File:Baía do Guajará 01.jpg, View of Mangal das Garças. File:Baía do Guajará 04.jpg, Guajará Bay and the Governador Almir Gabriel Bridge. File:Mangal das Garcas 02.jpg, Mangal das Garças Park. File:Belém Baía do Guajará.jpg, Satellite image of Belém and Guajará Bay. File:Foz do Guamá.jpg, Satellite image of the mouth of the Guamá River, which flows into Guajará Bay. File:Barco Baia de Guajara.jpg, River transportation in Guajará Bay.


See also

* Mosqueiro * Marajó Bay * Ver-o-peso Complex * History of Belém * Tupinambás Uprising


References


Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Guajara Bay Bays of Brazil Bays of the Atlantic Ocean Geography of Pará Landforms of Pará Belém