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In Brazil’s Amazon, land invasions — and fires — threaten a protected reserve

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BOM JARDIM, Brazil – Amid corn fields and pastures, miles of barbed wire enclose an island of pristine rainforest, likely next in line to be razed. Just beyond, in the Gurupi Biological Reserve, a web of dusty roads splinters the canopy, leading deep into one of the last slices of protected forest in this part of the Brazilian Amazon — and signaling that it, too, is under attack. The Gurupi Biological Reserve stretches 341,650 hectares (844,235 acres) across the southwestern corner of Brazil’s Maranhão state. Under federal protection since 1988, this region of dizzying biodiversity offers habitat to countless species like the red brocket deer (Mazama americana), the golden parakeet (Gauruba guarouba) and the Kaapori capuchin (Cebus kaapori), one of the world’s most critically endangered primates. It was here, in 2017, where researchers rediscovered the Belem curassow (Crax fasciolata pinima), a large, pheasant-like bird with a funky hairdo that was presumed extinct for 40 years. Researchers believe fewer than 50 mature Belem curassows (Crax fasciolata pinima) still exist in the wild. Image of a preserved specimen by Huub Veldhuijzen van Zanten/Naturalis Biodiversity Center via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). The reserve is also part of a crucial ecological corridor made up of seven protected areas, some of them home to Indigenous people living in voluntary isolation from the outside world. The Gurupi reserve is meant to shield especially vulnerable regions that lie beyond it from invasions and illicit exploitation. “What’s left of the Amazon forest in Maranhão is within this…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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