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At present the state of Amazonas, in Brazil, has 14 million hectares of protected areas in federal conservation units. These data are from the Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources).
According to the Ibama, the creation of 15 more conservation units is being considered. "Together, they represent 9 million additional hectares of protected areas," informed the regional director of the Ibama's National Center of Sustained Development of Traditional Populations (CNPT), Leonardo Pacheco.
He said that the creation of conservation units is an important step for combatting squatting and deforestation.
"In sustainable use units, the task is also to improve the quality of life of the people who live there. For this reason, there exist important stages in the implementation of the units, such as the creation of the Management Plan and the Advisory and Deliberative Councils," he explained.
Pacheco acknowledged, however, that there are still many obstacles to the concretization of sustainable and economically profitable exploitation of the forest.
According to data provided by the Ibama's executive manager in Amazonas, Henrique Pereira dos Santos, only two of the state's Community Forest Management Plans have been approved so far.
The extractive reserves and national forests are conservation units for sustainable use, permitting the presence of residents and the regulated economic exploitation of their natural resources in activities such as agricultural extraction.
The biological reserves and national parks are areas of integral protection, in which human presence and the economic exploitation of resources are much more restricted.
Agência Brasil
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