KONASHEN -Guyana’s place in the world’s largest tropical forest reserve
Guyana Chronicle
December 10, 2006
When Brazil’s Para governor Simao Jantene announced the creation of the world’s largest tropical forest reserve in the Amazon this week, it gave more meaning to the importance of Guyana’s Konashen district and its Wai Wai people.
In a major step to save the last great tract of untouched rainforest on earth, Brazil’s Pará state is protecting an Amazon expanse larger than England that teems with thousands of wildlife species. These include jaguars, anteaters and colorful macaws found in the Konashen district.
The nine new protected areas created form linkages to existing reserves of Conservation International’s vision vast conservation corridor in the northern Amazon, stretching into Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
The initiative is a joint effort led by the Pará state government in collaboration with the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (IMAZON) and Conservation International (CI). It identified the region’s highest-priority conservation targets that now have been protected. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation provided major support.
“If any tropical rainforest on earth remains intact a century from now, it will be this portion of northern Amazonia, due in large part to the governor’s visionary achievement,” CI President Russell A. Mittermeier said.
“The region has more undisturbed rainforest than anywhere else, and the new protected areas being created by Pará state represent an historic step toward ensuring that they continue to conserve the region’s rich biodiversity and maintain its essential ecosystem services,” he added.
Conservation corridors are protected zones crossing political and natural boundaries that maintain entire ecosystems for the benefit of the diverse biological life and human populations.
Communications Manager of CI Guyana Mr. Ajay Baksh explained that it is important that species are not confined to one area, and so, the corrider system allows the animals to travel across countries.
The government issued title to more than 1 million acres of Wai Wai lands in February 2004 and shortly thereafter, the Wai Wais requested help of the government and CI Guyana to have the area declared a community owned conservation area. It is these lands, which account for rare and endangered species of plants and animals that forms the link with Brazil’s new conservation initiative.
CI’s vision is for areas such as the Kaieteur National Park, Mount Roraima, Shell Beach and the Iwokrama rainforest conservation project to for the corridor in Guyana for biodiversity conservation.
The Wai Wais of southern Guyana, the Guyana government and the CI Guyana (CIG) have signed a tripartite Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) for assistance in establishing a Community Owned Conservation Area.
Baksh says the project is well underway, and a draft management plan should be presented next week for consultations to begin.
The Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Ms. Carolyn Rodrigues, who initially received the request from the Wai Wais recognized it as a step in the right direction which signifies the Wai Wais commitment to sustainable utilization.
The Wai Wais have a particular relationship with the land and have long practiced sustainability. However, they have recognized that marrying traditional knowledge and modern technology can only be an incentive for the proper management of the area.
New catfish species found at Konashen
Under the MOC, which will provide a framework for the implementation of the process, the Wai Wai have requested CIG’s assistance to jointly develop land and resource use practices that satisfy Wai Wai needs, while also conserving ecosystems and biodiversity.
The process involves working together to jointly evaluate the ongoing resource use and the needs of the Wai Wais and the impact of traditional land uses on biodiversity and ecosystems.
They also want to increase local, national and global awareness about the importance of biodiversity and ecosystems in the Kanashen District and jointly develop sustainable land and resource use practices that satisfy the needs of the Wai Wai while also conserving ecosystems and biodiversity.
The project also aims to identify and address threats to the integrity of the Kanashen District.
According to 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.
Endangered species in the new protected areas include the giant otter and northern bearded saki monkey, along with flagship species such as the jaguar, giant anteater and black spider monkey living among some of the richest biological diversity on earth.
Since 1970, more than 600,000 square kilometers (232,000 square miles) of Amazon rainforest – an area larger than France – has been destroyed, endangering countless species and environmental benefits such as fresh water and natural resources that sustain local communities.
Emerald tree Boa
Continued deforestation at that rate would imperil the entire region by 2050, and increase climate change by releasing into the atmosphere the gigatons of carbon dioxide stored naturally in the rainforest.
In total, the new protected areas cover 16.4 million hectares (63,320 square miles), including the 4.25-million-hectare (16,409 square miles) Grão-Pará Ecological Station, which is the world’s largest tropical forest reserve at roughly the size of Denmark (twice the size of Massachusetts).
a``This is the greatest effort in history toward the creation of protected areas in tropical forests,” said Adalberto Veríssimo, senior researcher at IMAZON.
The Grão-Pará station connects to the new 1.51-million-hectare (5,830 square miles) Maicuru Biological Reserve and several existing reserves, including Tumucumaque National Park in Brazil’s Amapá state, to form a contiguous protected zone in northern Brazil that anchors the Guayana Shield corridor.
Endangered blue dart poiuson frog
Both the Grão-Pará station and Maicuru reserve are restricted protection areas in which only research and conservation are allowed. The other new zones are Sustainable Use Protected Areas intended to manage natural resources in a sustainable way to supply the needs of local communities.
CI´s Global Conservation Fund (GCF), with support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, is committing US $1 million for initial costs of implementing the new protected areas. The goal of this seed investment is a long-term financial mechanism to secure the integrity of Pará state’s conservation commitment.