France has added a huge new protected area in French Guiana, and it dwarfs the other sites covered by the same law.
The French government announced the creation of the Rocky Peaks of Armontabo nature reserve, covering 370,000 acres in French Guiana. The reserve includes giant, isolated granite mountains surrounded by intact rainforest with rich biodiversity value.
The same wildlands protection law also protected seven other landscapes in mainland France, but together they add up to little more than 2,400 acres.
French Guiana contains more than 1,000 species of tree and has one of the highest forest-integrity index scores of any territory on Earth. Forty-one percent of its land area is made up of the Amazon rainforest alone, and other forest biomes are also present.
It is already home to Guiana Amazon National Park, one of the largest national parks on Earth and technically the largest in Europe.
The Armontabo Peaks are part of the Guiana Shield, a geo-eco region stretching across the Guianas, Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia. The region is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.
The new reserve pushes the amount of French territory under “strong protections” closer to the country’s goal of 10 percent by 2030. It also almost meets the target for 180,000 hectares of additional protections in Guiana by the same date.
“In concrete terms, this translates into less pressure on natural environments and stronger protection for species and habitats,” said Monique Barbut, France’s minister for ecological transition, biodiversity and international climate and nature negotiations.
The north-east corner of South America is also adding protections beyond French Guiana. In neighboring Suriname, the government announced protections for 25 million acres last year.
Re:wild, a conservation organization working in the Amazon and other South American regions, said Suriname is 90 percent forested, so virtually all of those acres protect trees and Amazon-style rainforest. The group reports that more than 700 birds, 100 amphibian species, and animals including lowland tapirs, jaguars, giant river otters and eight different primates range across the country.
“I’ve worked in Suriname for 50 years and I am absolutely delighted that President Geerlings-Simons has made this historic and unprecedented commitment to maintain Suriname’s forest cover at this level within her first two months in office,” said Russell Mittermeier, chief conservation officer at Re:wild.
“This sets a new standard for the Amazonian region as a whole, which has suffered from serious deforestation in recent decades.”
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