Experts aim to protect one of Brazil’s giant emblematic tree species

“What makes these trees so special is still a great mystery, and it takes time and studies to unravel,” Eric Gorgens said. The professor of spatial and environmental analysis at the Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri (UFVJM) was talking about the giant red angelim (Dinizia excelsa Ducke), an Amazonian tree with heights of up to 60 meters (196 feet) found in several rainforest areas of Brazil and Guyana. But it was in the Jari River Basin, between the Brazilian states of Pará and Amapá, that angelins up to almost 90 meters high (295 feet) were discovered a few years ago, with Gorgens part of that expedition. Until then, scientists hadn’t thought trees that tall existed in the Amazon.

“The tropical climate brings many difficulties to the survival of trees due to the aggressive environment, high humidity, strong winds and favorability to pests and diseases,” Gorgens added. “Despite this scenario, the tallest is between 400 and 600 years old, 88.5 meters [290 feet] tall and capable of sequestering carbon equivalent of a 1-hectare (2.4-acre) forest with an average canopy of 45 meters [147 feet].”

With the United Nations COP30 to be held in 2025 in Belém, Pará, efforts to legally protect giant trees have gained momentum. In Pará, the Institute for Forestry and Biodiversity Development (Ideflor-Bio) aims to reduce the area of the Paru State Forest (Flota da Paru) — which hosts the tallest known red angelim and is the world’s third-largest sustainable-use tropical forest reserve at 3.6 million hectares (8.9 million acres) — and create a fully protected state park over an area of about 562,000 hectares (1.4 million acres) to help preserve the giant angelims.

Currrently, the Paru State Forest has a conservation unit (CU) status that allows for sustainable forest management activities, such as harvesting of timber and non-timber products and ecotourism. “Our intention is to guarantee the safety of the largest tree in the Amazon and Latin America,” said Crisomar Lobato, director of biodiversity management at Ideflor-Bio.

The state environmental agency has been doing expeditions to the northwest of the Paru State Forest, home to the largest giant. Ideflor-Bio’s most recent expedition happened between May 16 and May 29, when scientists collected information on local flora, fauna, soil and topography. “We need as much data as possible to try to change the giant angelim’s protection status,” Lobato told Mongabay. “We are counting on COP30 to help us with [the protection of] the giant angelims.”

According to Lobato, Ideflor-Bio will forward the proposal to the Pará government this coming fall. If implemented, the new CU will be legally protected.

Not enough help on the ground

Experts, however, point out that the creation of new areas of full protection, allowing only scientific research and environmental education activities, also needs field supervision.

“Changing the protection category of an area is not enough,” said Jakeline Pereira, researcher at the Amazon Institute of People and Environment (Imazon) and adviser to the Paru Forest. “It is a good and necessary initiative, but it should not be the only one. Since the forest creation, in 2006, the government of Pará has never done a field inspection there.”

Scarce resources allocated to field operations and a lack of integration between government bodies have resulted, in recent years, in an increase of illegal mining in the national forest and other protected areas where red angelims are.

“There is a big difference between doing an overflight and going through the territory [on foot],” Pereira said. “Many illegal gold mines in the Paru Forest, in fact, work with alluvial mining, which does not open clearings [in the forest] and is difficult to detect flying over.”

On one of the expeditions, Pereira and other researchers spotted several illegal mines along the route. “Gold exploration has existed for many decades in the region and it is not an imaginary line with the boundaries of the [future] park that will prevent mining arrival,” she said. “The Maicuru Biological Reserve, which has giant angelims and is close to the Paru Forest, is an example. It is an integral protection unit, but illegal mining was never removed from there. This can be proven by satellite images and data from MapBiomas.”

In 2009, more than 600 miners were active in Paru, according to data from the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (SEMAS). Now there are more than 2,000.

In October 2023, in a controversial move, Nilson Pinto, president of Ideflor-Bio, authorized Mineração Carará Ltda. to explore gold in the CU, just three months after the company’s submitted the request. Mineração Carará’s owner, Eduardo Ribeiro Carvalho Pini, was accused by the Federal Public Ministry of having illegal mining activities in the forest itself. The request, which still lacks environmental licensing, is at SEMAS for analysis. Pinto did not respond to Mongabay’s request for an interview.

“The advisory council [of the forest] asks for field inspections, but they say that operations against illegal mining require coordination with other government bodies, such as IBAMA [Brazil’s environment agency] and the federal police,” Pereira said. “There are three Ideflor employees to oversee the Trombetas, Paru and Faro forests, an area of 7.1 million hectares [17.5 million acres]. SEMAS, on the other hand, has to surveil the whole state, and the south of the Paru Forest suffers from deforestation due to mining. If the CU is not very deforested [96% of its vegetation cover remains] it is because of the difficulty to access the region, not due to government action.”

Lobato, of Ideflor-Bio, said he agrees that what the CUs need most is more field agents. “We do what we can with overflights and satellite monitoring. The agency has a small structure, 162 management employees.”

A 2015 Ideflor survey — when Pará had 21 conservation areas — showed a need for 300 field inspection agents. Since then, the number of state CUs rose to 28. “The government is restructuring  Paru’s inspection to expand it in 2025,” the director said.

On the other side of the Jari River, in the state of Amapá, giant angelims are no better protected. Of the six specimens found in Amapá, one is in the Amapá State Forest, a CU similar to Paru. Four others are located in the Cupixi River region, and the last one in an agro extractive settlement, in the Mazagão municipality. The Amapá Forest is managed by the Integrated Management Center (NGI) ICMBio Amapá Central, a unit that also supervises the Tumucumaque Mountains National Park, which hosts dozens of red angelims.

Four of the 12 NGI Amapá Central employees need to manage about ​​3.7 million hectares (9.1 million acres) of land. “But it is a better reality than two years ago, when there were only two people at the NGI,” said Cristoph Jaster, an environmental analyst at the unit. “Field operations are not frequent; it would be great if they were once a month. We need police support for security, IBAMA for environmental fines, pilots and boats.”

Jaster, former chief of Tumucumaque Park, said the first deforestation alerts there began in 2022, with 20 hectares (49 acres). “Today they are almost 80 hectares [197 acres], and much more in the immediate surroundings, such as in the Cassiporé Basin, with over 1,500 hectares [3,700 acres]. Open-pit mines are being dug at the head of the Tajauí River, inside the park, and the contaminated waters flow until the Araguari River. There were reports from riverside dwellers in the Amapá Forest region that the Araguari waters, which are 300 kilometers [186 miles] from the new mining fronts, were all muddy [from mining].”

With the discovery of six giant angelims — and a 66-meter-tall (216-foot) chestnut tree — in Amapá, in October 2022, the Prosecution Office for the Environment, Agrarian Conflicts, Housing and Urbanism (Prodemac) of the Public Ministry of Amapá (MPAP) delivered a draft to then-Governor Waldez Góes, proposing that the trees become natural monuments — a status reserved for unique elements of nature — and their surroundings areas of permanent preservation.

“The governor was very receptive, which brought us much enthusiasm. There was, however, a change of government in 2023, and he left without implementing the project,” said Marcelo Moreira, a Prodemac prosecutor. “The idea was that it would become a decree, which would come into force immediately with the governor’s signature,” said João de Matos Filho, technical assistant to the environmental state body. Góes is currently Minister of National Integration in the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Prosecutor Moreira is currently in discussions with governor Clécio Luís and the state attorney general about the status change of the giant trees.

Meanwhile, field operations remain rare, and technology alone does not protect the forests. “With satellite images, the MPAP support group can see when an area has been cleared, but viewing a single tree is challenging. Once, in winter, clouds covered the sky and, when they dissipated, deforestation area by mining had doubled,” Moreira said. “With the pre-COP30 movement, we hope that our requests will be heard.”

Banner image: Located in the Amapá state, the second largest red angelim ever found is 85.4 meters (280 feet) tall and has a circumference of 9.8 meters (32 feet). Image courtesy of João de Matos Filho/Prodemac.

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