The Mapuá Extractive Reserve () is an

extractive reserve An extractive reserve ( 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, fishing and harvesting wild pla ...

in the state 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 ...

, Brazil.

Location

The Mapuá Extractive Reserve is in the municipality of Breves, Pará. It is on the island of

Marajó Marajó () is a large coastal island in the state of Pará, Brazil. It is the main and largest of the islands in the Marajó Archipelago. Marajó Island is separated from the mainland by Marajó Bay, Pará River, smaller rivers (especially M ...

to the northwest of

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 ...

in the delta region where 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 ...

and

Tocantins Tocantins () is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is the newest state, formed in 1988 and encompassing what had formerly been the northern two-fifths of the state of Goiás. Tocantins covers and had an estimated population of 1,496,880 in 2014 ...

rivers empty into 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 ...

. It is contained within the

Marajó Archipelago Environmental Protection Area The Marajó Archipelago Environmental Protection Area () is an environmental protection area in the state of Pará, Brazil. It protects the Marajó Archipelago, made up of marine fluvial islands in the area where the Amazon and Tocantins rivers ...

, established in 1989. It has an area of . The

Mapuá River The Mapuá River () is a river of Pará state in north-central Brazil. It is a left tributary of the Aramá River. In August 1659, the Treaty of the Mapuá was signed here by Portuguese Jesuits led by António Vieira with various indigenous peop ...

, a left tributary of the Aramã, runs along the reserve's southern boundary. The

Aramá River The Aramá River () is a river of Pará state in north-central Brazil. It is a right tributary of the Jacaré Grande River. Course The Aramá River rises on the island of Marajó in the delta region where the Amazon Amazon most often refers to: ...

forms the northern boundary in the western part of the reserve. It adjoins the Terra Grande-Pracuúba Extractive Reserve to the east. The reserve is in the

Amazon biome The Amazon biome () contains the Amazon rainforest, an area of tropical rainforest, and other ecoregions that cover most of the Amazon basin and some adjacent areas to the north and east. The biome contains blackwater river, blackwater and whitewa ...

. It contains sheets of tidal water and mangroves. The reserve is mostly lowland floodplain, with some terra firma in the centre of the territory. It is laced with rivers, stream, channels and lakes. The main rivers are the Mapuá, Aramã and Lado do Jacaré.

History

The Mapuá Extractive Reserve was created by presidential decree on 20 May 2005. It is administered by the

Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation ( Portuguese: ''Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade'', ICMBio) is a government agency under the administration of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment. It is nam ...

(ICMBio). It 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 part ...

VI (protected area with sustainable use of natural resources). The objective is to ensure the survival of the traditional people, their customs and way of life, and to ensure regional biodiversity. The reserve was one of several created by president

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (; born Luiz Inácio da Silva; 27 October 1945), known Mononym, mononymously as Lula, is a Brazilian politician, trade unionist and former metalworker who has served as the 39th president of Brazil since 2023. A mem ...

at the same time, influenced by the National Council of Extractive Populations (CNS). The conservation unit is supported by the

Amazon Region Protected Areas Program The Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA; ) is a joint initiative sponsored by government and non-government agencies to expand protection of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Foundation The Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA) orig ...

. The non-profit Residents Association of the Mapuá Extractive Reserve (AMOREMA) was created on 5 November 2005, based in the Bom Jesus community. INCRA recognised the reserve on 20 December 2007 as an area to support 400 families of small rural producers. The deliberative council was created on 25 June 2008. The reserve was assigned to ICMBio on 15 March 2010. On 23 March 2010 ICMBio granted a concession to use the reserve to AMOREMA, and on 27 April 2016 the state of Pará recognized AMOREMA as a utility.

People and economy

The families in the reserve traditionally live by subsistence agriculture, gathering forest products, hunting and

artisanal fishing Artisanal, subsistence, or traditional fishing consists of various small-scale, low-technology, fishing practices undertaken by individual fishermen (as opposed to commercial fishing). Many of these households are of coastal or island ethnic grou ...

. Fruits collected from the forest include açaí,

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 re ...

andiroba ''Carapa'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mahogany family, Meliaceae. These are trees up to 30 meters tall occurring in tropical South America, Central America,Hogan, C. M. 2008Isthmian-Atlantic moist forests.Encyclopedia of Earth, World ...

and

Brazil nut The Brazil nut (''Bertholletia excelsa'') is a South American tree in the family Lecythidaceae, and it is also the name of the tree's commercially harvested edible seeds. It is one of the largest and longest-lived trees in the Amazon rainforest. ...

. There are fourteen riverside communities in the reserve: Santíssima Trindade, São Benedito Aramã, São Sebastião Mapuá, Bom Jesus, Vila Amélia, Santa Rita, Nazaré do Socó, São José, São Benedito Mapuá, Santa Maria, São Sebastião Canta Galo, Assembléia de Deus, Nazaré do Jacaré and Perpétuo Socorro. Vila Amélia is the place were the Treaty of the Mapuá was signed in August 1659.

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mapua Extractive Reserve 2005 establishments in Brazil Extractive reserves of Brazil Protected areas of Pará