Development Issues in the Tropical Rainforest

Development issues within the Tropical Rainforest: Jau National Park

The Jau national park is located in the Amazonas state in Brazil, between 1º00’—3º00’S and 61º30’—64º00’W.

It is the largest forest reserve in South America, covering an area greater than 5.6 million acres (23,000 km²). Entry into the park is restricted; express permission from the Brazilian government is required to enter the reserve.[pic 1]

The park is known as a good example of tropical rainforest conservation in the Amazon. It houses Jaguars, Amazonian Manatees, Amazon River dolphins, and numerous other species of animals and plants.

Climate:

Jau has a humid, tropical climate where the rain falls in two seasons, with around 1750mm between July and September and 2500mm between December and April.

Annual temperature ranges are usually less than the diurnal (or daily) range. The annual range is only between 26 and 26.7 degrees Celsius.

Biodiversity:

There are three main vegetation types in the park:

• Dense tropical forest, mainly on unflooded land, generally very stratified, with a layer of tall emergent trees and averaging 180 plant species per hectare.
• Open tropical igapo – seasonally flooded forest. This is characterised by low trees with thin trunks, with many orchid epiphytes; it grows on sandy, nutrient-poor soils and averages 108 plant species per hectare.
• Campinarana – a tall, dry shrub-woodland mosaic restricted to the Rio Negro region which grows primarily in well-drained uplands. It is dominated by tall trees and epiphytes and lianas are very rare.
• Within each of these microhabitats is a variety of vegetation types, including chavascai swamp and grassland.

There is high diversity with 120 species of mammals, 470 birds (2/3 of the birds recorded from the Central Amazon), 15 reptiles and 320 fish, which represents 2/3 of the fish recorded in the Rio Negro basin.

Threats to the Park:

Deforestation is currently the main threat in the Amazon region. Some 13% of the original rainforest has already been lost to inadequate government policies, inappropriate land use systems, unsustainable resource use activities and the ever-increasing economic pressure on the region's resources of the last 30 years. Only 3.5% of the total area of 3.5 million square kilometres of the Brazilian Amazon is officially designated federal indirect-use protected areas. Fishing is also a threat – around 250 families fish the area’s river quite intensively.