Fonte: Ecoa

The Amolar Hills are understood as an area of high priority for conservation by authorities, governmental bodies, research institutions and NGOs. This recognition also properly reflects the understanding and works Ecoa has developed in this region, with campaigns and evaluations for the protection of the Amolar and its communities.

According to the biodiversity context and due to this condition of “hot-line” of the Pantanal, the Amolar Hills has a strategic function, for it is the contact point between the Pantanal plain, forests, savannas and the Chiquitano bush lands. The fact of combining a situation in which in its base is the largest flooded plain of the planet, at only 100 meters from the sea level, and altitudes higher than 1,000 meters, characterizes it as unique region.

Around 10 years ago, Ecoa has decided to focus its activities in a program for the conservation and protection of strategic areas of the Pantanal (and among then, the Amolar), which is strongly based in two pillars: the involvement of local communities in the defense of their surrounding environment and the promotion of livelihood quality through a policy and methodological approach which we have named as the “Integrate development of Communities at the Pantanal”.

Aims the creation of protected areas under diverse conservation status (extractive reserve, Park, Sustainable development reserve, private reserves and others). In regards to private lands, the promotion of “Private Reserves of the natural heritage” or the acquisition of land for conservation will be one of the priority components under Ecoa’s Amolar Plan. In addressing/promoting initiatives that integrates the conservation and sustainable uses of natural resources through a pro-poor approach as well as initiatives for conservation and efforts facing the threats or priority issues for the region, knowledge centers, researchers and research institutions have been and should continue to be involved, subsidizing the initiatives.

The Amolar Hills and surrounding wetlands are one of the most pristine regions of the World, also a place of high biodiversity and maybe the most important and beautiful region of the Pantanal.

Rising from the plains of the Paraguay River, in Brazil, the Amolar Hills reaches up to more than 1,000 meters. It functions as a natural barrier which retains and slows down the pace of the waters, thus significantly contributing to regulate the flooding regime of the Pantanal.

The Amolar Hills are understood as an area of high priority for conservation by authorities, governmental bodies, research institutions and NGOs. This recognition also properly reflects the understanding and works Ecoa has developed in this region, with campaigns and evaluations for the protection of the Amolar and its communities.

There are several reasons that justify the need for conservation of the Amolar and the creation of protected areas:

a)     Diversity of landscapes and ecosystem types: there are representative formations of different biomes such as the Amazonian Forrest, dry lands Savannah and Chiquitano Bush-land;

b)    Congregates a high biodiversity and the upper lands (hills and higher plains) functions as refuges for the fauna during the flooding (high waters) period;

c)     The existence of important “remains (relicts) of the Caatinga”, which register the geomorphologic history of the Pantanal from thousands of years ago, when the area was under the influence of a dryer climate;

d)    The existing threats that may put this whole region into risk, such as the clearance of lands by the setting of fires, illegal poaching, and the large hotel enterprises;

e)     The need of increasing the extension of lands under protection at the Upper Paraguay River Basin, since only around 1,5% of the lands are under some type of conservation status;

Amolar Hills in the context of the Pantanal

A well-accepted hypothesis for the understanding of the ecological meaning of the Pantanal relates to the connectivity between the two largest basins of South America, functioning as a bio-geographic corridor (known as a hot line). At the Pantanal, it is possible to identify the presence of species from the Amazon Basin as well as of species from the Parana - La Plata Basin. This characteristic is high lighted at the Amolar Hills region, due to the diversity of altitudes and landscapes, as well as its location, at the “heart of the Pantanal”.

According to the biodiversity context and due to this condition of “hot-line” of the Pantanal, the Amolar Sierra has a strategic function, for it is the contact point between the Pantanal plain, forests, savannas and the Chiquitano bush lands. The fact of combining a situation in which in its base is the largest flooded plain of the planet, at only 100 meters from the sea level, and altitudes higher than 1,000 meters, characterizes it as unique region.

Ecoa’s background and the Amolar Hills:

Ecoa has a strong presence in the region since the mid 1990s, with efforts to oppose the Paraguay/Paraná Waterway and working directly with the Guato indigenous people, at the Northern part of the Amolar Hills.

Around 10 years ago, Ecoa has decided to focus its activities in a program for the conservation and protection of strategic areas of the Pantanal (and among then, the Amolar), which is strongly based in two pillars: the involvement of local communities in the defense of their surrounding environment and the promotion of livelihood quality through a policy and methodological approach which we have named as the “Integrate development of Communities at the Pantanal”.

When Ecoa intensified its work at the Amolar Hills (around 7 years ago), the first situation that the NGO has encounter was of local conflicts and tensions between local people (riverine and fisherfolks) and the protected units in the surroundings. One of the problems faced was the constant illegal fires that would affect the National Park of the Pantanal, plus logging and poaching. At the same time, communities also suffered from the lack of basic services/assistance (such as school, health care, housing and others) as well as lack of policies and means to maintain their livelihoods and increase their live quality.