The Grão-Pará Ecological Station (Estação Ecológica Grão-Pará is a strictly protected ecological station in the state of Pará, Brazil. It managed by the state of Pará. With of well-preserved Amazon rainforest it is the largest fully protected tropical forest conservation unit in the world.
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station was established by state decree 2609 of 4 December 2006, signed by the state governorSimão Jatene. The unit was announced by Jatene in a ceremony that announced nine conservation areas, mostly in northern Pará that occupy a total of about. Others included the Maicuru Biological Reserve, the Paru, Trombetas, Faro and Iriri state forests and the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area. Creation of the protected areas was expected to reduce deforestation, mining and consequent mercury contamination of water, poaching, irregular farming and other threats. Within two months of creation of the strictly protected unit it was reported that the Rio Tinto mining company was seeking approval to have excluded from the unit. The miner had been prospecting for bauxite near the headwaters of the Curuá River, and thought there might be a huge deposit. It seemed unlikely that the permission would be given since this would throw into doubt the state's entire environmental plan. In 2007, the Pará Secretary of State for the Environment signed a Term of Technical Cooperation with the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Forest Development Institute of Pará, Institute of Man and Environment, Conservation International and the German Technical Cooperation Agency. These institutions worked together to develop the management plan for the implementation of the reserve, published in 2011. The Management Plan is based on the general objectives for a conservation unit, and establishes standards for use of the area and management of natural resources, including implementation of the physical structures needed to manage the unit.
Environment
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station covers dissected plateaus with altitudes from. Most of the region has altitudes of. The lowest areas are in the north near the Trombetas River, while the highest are in the northwest in the Serra do Acari region at and in the southern portion at. The terrain is rugged, with no access roads or fully navigable rivers. The unit can be reached only by helicopter or light air plane using improvised landing strips. It is known that indigenous people access it through the Trombetas and Erepecuru river regions. The Grão-Pará Ecological Station is in the Amazon biome. It has a tropical monsoon climate. Temperatures range from and are usually between. Average annual rainfall is from, with heaviest rains on the December–May period when monthly precipitation is. Even in the driest months rainfall is above. The unit contains parts of two sub-basins of the Amazon River, the Nhamundá-Trombetas basin and the Cuminapanema-Maicuru sub-basin. The main rivers of the unit have combined lengths of. The unit is mostly covered with dense submontane rainforest or transitional forest, with small areas of cerrado and dense alluvial rainforest. Known numbers of species include 125 fish, 62 amphibians, 68 reptiles, 355 birds, 61 mammals, 125 ferns and 653 flowering plants. The natural resources are well preserved.
Conservation
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station allows only indirect use of its natural resources, and has the specific purpose of conserving nature and supporting scientific research. Public visits are prohibited except for educational purposes subject to the Management Plan, and scientific research requires prior permission of SEMA/PA. It lies entirely within the Pará Northern Corridor Full Protection Zone. With the other protected areas and indigenous lands in the region it connects the Central Amazon Ecological Corridor to the west with the Amapá corridor to the east. The conservation unit is supported by the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program.
