State of Pará in northern Brazil, announced the creation of the largest forest reserve in the world, with an area of 150,000 square kilometers (km2), which is almost equivalent to the area of Portugal, Switzerland and Denmark met. A third of this territory will be completely isolated from any human activity that could disturb the equilibrium.

This forest reserve is located in one of the most remote regions of northern Brazil and is subdivided into seven areas, where scientists have found an amazing ecological inventory of over 600 species of reptiles, 700 birds and 195 of mammals.

On this initiative, the leader of the green (environmental) of Brazil, José Luis de Franca Pena, said: "In a time when the main problem facing the world is the weather, a gesture like this brings hope the planet. "

The decree provides that one third of these areas of tropical forests will be completely protected with no agricultural activity. The rest will be open to logging and other industries, but under strict government control and, according to the decree signed last December by four of the governor of Para, Simao Jatene.

"The creation of these zones represents a significant step towards the conservation of one of the largest contiguous blocks of tropical forest on our planet," said Jose Maria Cardoso da Silva, vice president of the environmental organization Conservation International (CI), contributed to the initiative.

Meanwhile, biologist Enrico Bernard, attached to this organization, asserted that there is a "huge potential" to find new species in the newly created forest reserve. Along with the reserves in the states of Amazonas and Ampa, Brazil now has 3,000 km of nature reserve, the largest in the world.

Environmentalists

stressed that the creation of protected areas "to alleviate the severe criticism against Brazil due to the annual rate of deforestation in the Amazon and its participation in the emission of greenhouse gases," according to the newspaper O Globo. < / P>

From August 2005 to July 2006, the Amazon forest lost 13,100 square kilometers of deforestation proceeds, a figure still represents a 30% reduction in relation to the devastated area in the previous period.

This improvement was attributed to the policy launched by the Minister for the Environment, Marina Silva, who created new conservation areas and authorized the bidding of logging areas in search of a sustainable development of the forest. Progress is also the result of the suppression of the illegal exploitation of the forest, the government said.

Amazonia occupies 6.68 million km2, almost 60% of Brazilian territory and is the region with the highest biodiversity in the world. It is estimated that houses approximately 10% of the variety of life on the planet, equivalent to five million species. Currently, 16% of the region has been deforested, mostly by arson. The forest is turned into pasture for cattle ranching.