Brazilian Amazon protected areas 'in flames' as land-grabbers invade
BY ANA IONOVA ON 7 AUGUST 2020
Mongabay Series: Forest Trackers
In a remote slice of Triunfo do Xingu, deep in Brazil’s northern Pará state, swaths of lush forest have been engulfed by flames in recent days. In another stretch to the north, a patch of untouched jungle has been almost entirely cleared this year. In countless other parts of this vast protected region, the Amazon is being cut down and burned at a dizzying speed.
The Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu spans some 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) across the municipalities of São Félix do Xingu and Altamira, long strongholds of Brazilian cattle ranching. It encompasses thousands of hectares of dense jungle and boasts a rich diversity of plant and animal species. It is also home to Indigenous groups and traditional peoples, who rely on the forest to survive.
The Xingu region is home to a wide variety of animals, such as bare-tailed woolly opossums (Caluromys philander). Image by Moisés Silva Lima via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 2.0)
Under federal protection since 2006, the territory is supposed to be used only for sustainable development, with landowners required to keep some 80% of the forest intact. When it was created more than a decade ago, Triunfo do Xingu was intended as a buffer that would protect vulnerable areas beyond its boundaries, like the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory and the Terra do Meio Ecological Station. The ecologically-rich Xingu Basin – within which it is nestled – is made up of some 28 conservation areas and 18 Indigenous territories.
But the area has come under pressure, becoming one of the most deforested regions in the Amazon in recent years. It lost some 436,000 hectares of forest between 2006 and 2019, with some 5% cleared last year alone, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD). Overall, the territory has lost nearly 30% of its forest cover, according to Francisco Fonseca, who works for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a nonprofit focused on environmental conservation.
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The Xingu area is the only place in the state of Pará where hyacinth macaws (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) live – and is the most northerly reach of their range. The species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Image by Geoff Gallice via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 2.0).
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https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/brazilian-amazon-protected-areas-in-flames-as-land-grabbers-invade/
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