Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state

Brazil’s Pará state has now protected almost all of its Amazonian coastline after establishing two new conservation units that make up the world’s largest and most conserved belt of mangroves. The environmental victory came after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed the decree for the two reserves on March 21, placing an additional 74,700 hectares (184,600 acres) of mangrove ecosystems under federal protection. “It’s another win for us to protect this mangrove here in the Amazon,” Sandra Regina Pereira Gonçalves, fisherwoman and national director and regional coordinator of the National Commission for Strengthening Extractive Reserves and Traditional Coastal and Marine Extractive Peoples (Confrem), told Mongabay. Confrem was involved in the campaign for getting the mangrove regions recognized as federal reserves. The creation of the reserves is an important milestone for guaranteeing food security for local populations as well as preserving the area’s rich biodiversity and aiding carbon sequestration. Getting the reserves recognized as federally protected areas took 16 years and faced several setbacks, Gonçalves said, including a freeze between 2019 and 2022 on environmental protection initiatives by former president Jair Bolsonaro. The two new reserves are the Filhos do Mangue and the Viriandeua extractive reserves. Known in Brazil as Resex, extractive reserves are conservation areas where community residents maintain the right to traditional extractive practices, such as hunting, fishing, and harvesting wild plants. They’re designed to protect the livelihoods and cultures of traditional people and ensure the sustainable use of an area’s natural resources. “Only community members can live…This article was originally published on Mongabay