The protected territory totals 57,915 square miles of the Guayana Shield region, an area of Amazon forest stretching across international borders that contains 25% of the world’s remaining humid tropical forests.
The protected areas will link to existing reserves to form a large preservation corridor stretching into neighbouring Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana.
Washington-based environmental group Conservation International put up US$1m to help the expansion, which preserves much of the jungle’s largely untouched north.
“If any tropical rainforest on Earth remains intact a century from now, it will be this portion of northern Amazonia,” said Conservation International president Russell Mittermeier.
The Amazon region covers 60% of Brazil, and 20% of its forest – 1.6 million square miles – has been destroyed by development logging and farming.
