It’s called the Guyana Shield – and you might say it’s protecting us from climate disaster: roughly 10 million acres of the most undisturbed tropical forest in the world, sheltering some 5,000 types of medicinal plants and countless rare animal species, with the largest remaining reserves of unpolluted water in the Americas. The region lies on a unique geologic uplift that spans the countries of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil; Brazil has just agreed to create preserves of almost 58,000 acres of it that lie within their borders. Portions of the Shield in other countries are already protected, and Conservation International, together with a group of NGOs and local governments, is working to create a “preservation corridor” through the area, and to encourage ecotourism to stave off the farming and logging industries. (See a map of protected areas here) The BBC quoted Adalberto Verissimo of the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon), which is also working on the project, as saying: “This is the greatest effort in history toward the creation of protected areas in tropical forests.”

Elsewhere:
– “Rainforest gets protected status (BBC)
– “Brazil creates 7 new protected areas in eastern Amazon rain forest (IHT)