Amazon
Projects - Amazon Region Protected Areas
Jaù National Park
© WWF-Canon / Juan PRATGINESTOS
Flying high over the Amazon in a commercial jet grants the traveler the illusion of limitless pristine wilderness. A brilliant tapestry of blue and green stretches to the horizon.
At ground level, the reality is more sobering. Pushing inward toward the heart of the Amazon Basin from its eastern and southern flanks, agriculture, mining, road building, settlements and deforestation mar the landscape.
Despite the serious losses being sustained in the Amazon, vast expanses of the Brazilian Amazon are still intact, and there is a window of opportunity for us to safeguard what remains.
Safeguarding our rain forests
In 2002 WWF joined with the Brazilian Government and other partners to launch the Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) program – the world’s largest tropical forest conservation program. ARPA is an ambitious multi-year effort to ensure comprehensive protection of the Brazilian Amazon. To accomplish this goal, WWF and partners are working to create a system of well-managed strict preservation areas and sustainable use reserves. The network of protected areas is based on rigorous scientific planning and careful public consultation.
The first phase of ARPA began in 2003 and ran to the end of 2009. By 2008 ARPA surpassed its Phase 1 protected area creation targets – including the establishment of over 62 million acres of new protected areas – an area about the size of Wyoming. This includes creating the 9.4 million acre Tumucumaque Mountains National Park, one of the world's largest tropical forest national parks. In addition to protecting the Amazon’s biodiversity, a study led by WWF and IPAM/Woods Hole Research Center concludes that ARPA’s system of well-managed and sustainably-financed protected areas is contributing to reduced CO2 emissions from deforestation.
ARPA’s second phase will be implemented over a four-year period (2010 to 2013) and will create and improve management of 150 million acres of new protected areas. Additional goals for the second phase are the consolidation of protected areas created during the first phase and the implementation of complementary financing mechanisms, including a Trust Fund that will cover in perpetuity the recurring expenses of the protected areas.
ARPA is comparable to the U.S. National Park System. However, when ARPA is complete it will encompass an area more than 50 percent greater than the U.S. National Parks have reached in 130 years, and at a small fraction of the cost. And ARPA will surpass the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System – which has developed over 100 years – in sheer numbers of bird, mammal, fish, reptile, and amphibian species protected.
A squirrel monkey in the 15,000 square mile Tumucumaque National Park, which is virtually uninhabited by humans.
© WWF / Kitt Nascimento
Creating the world's most ambitious tropical forest protected area system is no small task. With project activity spread out over an area larger than Western Europe, ARPA's design and operation reflect a new conservation approach involving action at the grassroots, national and international levels. Technical and financial support from WWF's global network to the ARPA partnership is one important key to the program's success.
