Brazilian reserve protects both leafy and human inhabitants

Local villagers work in harmony with conservationists inside the Mamiraua forest reserve

From Correspondent Gary Strieker

April 24, 2000
Web posted at: 4:12 p.m. EST (2012 GMT)

MAMIRAUA RESERVE, Brazil (CNN) -- Part of an area of protected wilderness that is larger than Costa Rica, Mamiraua is the world's largest protected block of rainforest. The Amazon sanctuary also holds special status for another reason: as Brazil's first sustainable development reserve, an experiment in harmonizing nature conservation with human needs.

"Mamiraua has been a win-win situation. The protection of the area has never been so good, the fish stocks have never been so high, and the situation of the locals, using any standard of comparison, is far better than it was five years ago," said Vicente Nogueira of the Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute.

VIDEO CNN's Gary Strieker visits an Amazon nature reserve whose most valuable resource may be its people. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     MESSAGE BOARD Saving the Environment

Most nature reserves in Brazil exist only on paper, according to conservationists. Serious measures to protect land areas are often stalled by the problem of removing people living inside them.

In contrast, Mamiraua was founded on the basis that the people living in it, some 20,000 in dozens of villages, would be allowed to stay and play a major role in protecting its natural resources. An elderly fisherman said he thinks the plan is working. All the fish would be gone without it, he said.

In a project sponsored in part by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, scientists work with the inhabitants to find ways to conserve breeding stocks of fish and other harvested wildlife.

Forest inhabitants have a major role in conserving wildlife within the reserve

Since then harvests have increased, marketing cooperatives have enjoyed higher prices and villages have obtained more income.

There are new sources of earnings, like an ecotourism lodge, and improvements to agriculture and social welfare. As people benefit, they take responsibility for enforcing conservation laws.

Volunteer guards patrolling the reserve report violations to authorities. "They are also protecting their natural resources, their economy, their day-to-day quality of life," said Jose Marcio Ayres of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Without participation by local people, government officials say, it would be almost impossible to provide sufficient money and guards to protect the reserve, which covers more than 22,000 square miles (57,000 square km).

In the 1970s and 1980s, loggers and farmers cut down or burned vast stretches of the forest. International condemnation since then helped prompt the government to begin action.

Much of the Amazon remains at risk. But the destruction has stopped in Mamiraua, which could serve as a model for other reserves.

"If Brazil wants to increase the amount of protected areas in the Amazon, it has to go through a system which is like Mamiraua, involving local people," Marcio Ayres said.

Brazil loses Hawaii-sized chunk of Amazon in 1999
April 14, 2000
Scientists plumb life beneath the Amazon
April 7, 2000
Rainforest people go from eating to protecting rare turtle
January 28, 2000

Wildlife Conservation Society
Flooded Forest
Mamiraua Project
Friends of the Earth

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.