What is some information on the Amazon rainforests in Brazil?

Answer 1

Brazil created the world's largest expanse of protected tropical rainforest in Pará, the state where American nun Dorothy Stang was murdered after trying to protect land rights of rural poor. The network of seven new protected areas covers an expanse of 15 million hectares (57,915 square miles) -- or an area larger than England -- and links to existing reserves to form a vast conservation corridor in the northern Amazon, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.

The effort was backed by Pará State Government, the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (IMAZON), Conservation International (CI), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and WWF.

"The new protected areas complete the Brazilian portion of the Guayana Shield corridor of Amazon rainforest stretching from neighboring Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana into Brazil," read a statement from CI. "The Guayana Shield region is a global conservation priority, containing more than 25 percent of Earth's humid tropical forests. Almost 90 percent of the Guayana Shield forest is untouched, and the region contains the most significant freshwater reserves in the American tropics, with almost 20 percent of the world's water running through it."

"These new protected areas will also form the world's largest conservation corridor, connecting them to a big protected area Amapa, which includes the Montanhas do Tumucumaque National Park, which until now was the biggest protected area created in the Brazilian Amazon. This mosaic of protected areas will be further connected, through indigenous people's lands, with other protected areas in the Brazilian states of Roraima and Amazonas," added a media release from WWF.