Qualla: Manicore Biological Reserve

Manicore Biological Reserve: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is a line in the southern Amazon where the forest stops being negotiable. East of that line, sustainable logging is permitted. West of it, environmental protections allow some human activity. But within the 359,137 hectares of the Manicore Biological Reserve, the equation is different. No logging. No farming. No grazing. No settlement. This is one of Brazil's most restrictive categories of protected land, a biological reserve where the only permitted activities are scientific research and environmental education, and even those require authorization. Created by presidential decree on May 11, 2016, the reserve exists for a single purpose: to keep intact a stretch of Amazon rainforest that loggers, ranchers, and soybean farmers have been approaching from the south since 2005.

Manicore Biological Reserve: The Core of a Conservation Corridor

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Manicore Biological Reserve does not stand alone. It was designed as the most heavily protected element in a network of conservation units that together form a barrier across the southern Amazon. To the west, the 151,993-hectare Campos de Manicore Environmental Protection Are...

Manicore Biological Reserve: Three Rivers and Eight Hundred Species of Birds

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The reserve was created specifically to protect the biological diversity of three river systems: the Manicore, the Manicorezinho, and the Jatuarana, along with their tributaries and the landscapes that sustain them. Dense rainforest dominates the vegetation, with pioneer formatio...

Manicore Biological Reserve: Signed in the Final Week

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The political circumstances of the reserve's creation are inseparable from its story. On May 11, 2016, President Dilma Rousseff signed into existence five new conservation units totaling 2.6 million hectares, all in the south of Amazonas state. Days later, she was provisionally r...

Manicore Biological Reserve: Acidic Soil as an Unlikely Ally

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The soils beneath the reserve are acidic and low in fertility, characteristics that make them poorly suited for the agriculture and cattle ranching that have consumed millions of hectares of Amazon forest elsewhere. This geological reality is, in a sense, the reserve's first line...