More About Our Area
Ecolog’s area is located 240 kilometers away from Porto Velho in the state of Rondonia, and the district of Vista Alegre do Abunã. The region is considered to be one of the last intact portions of the state’s Amazon forest. The 30 thousand hectare area that is under forest management plan, borders the Madeira River. Among the wood species found in Ecolog’s forest reserve are: samaúma, ipê and angelim-pedra and Brazil nut. The place is also a refuge for wildlife threatened with extinction such as the royal hawk, the jaguar and the leopard cat.
The human occupation started with migration from the states of Acre and the northeastern region of Brazil. They came lured by the promise of cheap land and new Incra settlings. The arrival of these new settlers during the eighties and nineties, and the lack of a sustainable settlement program, triggered an accelerated process of deforestation. The state of Rondonia has already lost 35% of its original forest. Ecolog’s area has become an important conservation pole for the region. The 30 thousand hectares that belong to the company are part of a biodiversity corridor that will be added to the new conservation units along the federal highway BR-319, which connects Rondonia to the state of Amazonas. The region is also rich in minerals, such as gold and cassiterite.
Rondonia is one of the nine stated that comprise the Brazilian Amazon ecosystem. The Amazon covers an area of 4,871.000 square kilometers in the country. Despite its size, the wealth of species and diversity of habitats, there are huge gaps in the knowledge of the flora, fauna and ecological processes of the region, which result in a challenge to choose the appropriate areas for biodiversity conservation.
The Amazon biome is formed by 23 eco-regions: lowlands, forested highlands, inundated forest areas (igapó), cerrado vegetation and transition forest. There are some 51 strict nature reserves that cover 4.12% of the biome; 77 sustainable development conservation units that cover 8.99% of the biome and 259 indigenous lands that cover 22.86% of the biome. The distribution of the 51 full protection conservation units is not evenly distributed among the eco-regions of the Amazon biome. Some eco-regions have no strict nature reserves.
