Vast new rainforest reserve unveiled in Brazilian Amazon
The Brazilian Amazon will soon be home to the world’s largest tropical-rainforest reserve, in news that’s making conservationists beam — and making us feel better about all those pints of Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch we ate to help the cause. The vast tract — which, at 63,320 square miles, is larger than England — joins a corridor of protected land in neighboring nations. Combining an area of total conservation with one that allows strictly regulated logging and farming, Brazil’s addition will also continue to provide a home for indigenous people, as well as endangered species like the northern bearded saki monkey. (Can we get one? Pleeease? We’ll walk it and feed it and everything!) The goal is to encourage sustainable growth, says Simao Jatene, governor of the state of Para, where the reserve will lie. “This announcement allows a change in the perspective of those who look at Para and the Amazon as either a storehouse or a sanctuary,” says Jatene. “We are none of these things.”
