Tumucumaque Mountains National Park
The Tumucumaque Mountains National Park is a protected natural area located in the northeast of Brazil in the Amazon Forest of the state of Amapá, near the border with French Guiana and Suriname.
History
It was declared a national park on August 22, 2002, thanks to the collaboration of the Brazilian government and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Its Management Plan was published on March 10, 2010.
Features
The park is inserted in the region known as Guiana Shield, north of the Amazon. It has an area of 38,875 km², making it the largest national park in Brazil.
The vegetation of the park is the tropical jungle. The forest is characterized by being almost entirely primary, with little or no alteration, and by being large, being able to house the largest trees in Brazil, the angelim red (Dinizia excelsa Ducke).
It is an uninhabited area of great ecological value: many of its species cannot be found anywhere else in the world, especially fish and waterfowl. It is also inhabited by jaguars, primates, freshwater turtles, harpy eagles and the rare agouti. It appears in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest rainforest reserve.
Geography
The Tumucumaque Mountains National Park covers an area of more than 38,800 square kilometers (14,980 mi²), making it the largest rainforest national park in the world and the largest in Belgium. Its surface even reaches 59,000 square kilometers (22,780 mi²) if you include the bordering Guiana Amazon Park, a national park in French Guiana. This combination of protected areas is still smaller than the system of three national parks on the border between Brazil and Venezuela, where the Parima-Tapirapeco, Serranía de la Neblina and Pico da Neblina national parks have a combined area of more than 73,000 square kilometers. (28,190 mi²).
But the latter is certainly less if you combine the Tumucumaque Mountains National Park (Brazil) and the adjacent Guayana Amazon Park (France) with neighboring large protected areas in northern Pará, Brazil, such as the Ecological Station de Grão-Pará, the Maicuru Biological Reserve and many others. The importance is that this makes the Guiana Shield one of the best protected and largest ecological corridors of tropical forests in the world. It is uninhabited and has a high ecological value: most of its animal species, mainly fish and waterfowl, are found nowhere else in the world. It is a habitat for jaguars, primates, aquatic turtles, and harpy eagles.
There is the highest point of the Brazilian state of Amapá, which reaches 701 meters.
Climate
The climate is tropical monsoon (Köppen: Am), common in areas of northern Brazil in transition from biomes to the Amazon Forest. It has an average temperature of 25 °C (77 °F) and an accumulated rainfall ranging between 2,000 (7.87 in) and 3,250 mm (127.95 in) per year.
 Average climatic parameters of Tumucumaque Mountains National Park (Lindero with Suriname), height: 355.4 yd, 1961-1990 normal and extreme | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Ene. | Feb. | Mar. | Open up. | May. | Jun. | Jul. | Ago. | Sep. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | Annual |
| Average temperature (°C) | 29.0 | 28.8 | 29.2 | 29.4 | 29.5 | 29.6 | 29.9 | 30.8 | 31.7 | 32.2 | 31.6 | 30.3 | 30.2 |
| Average temperature (°C) | 24.2 | 24.1 | 24.3 | 24.5 | 24.5 | 24.4 | 24.4 | 24.7 | 25.2 | 25.8 | 25.7 | 25.0 | 24.7 |
| Temp. medium (°C) | 20.7 | 20.8 | 21.0 | 21.4 | 21.3 | 21.0 | 20.7 | 20.6 | 20.4 | 20.9 | 21.0 | 21.0 | 20.9 |
| Total precipitation (mm) | 111.2 | 116.3 | 168.1 | 226.7 | 348.5 | 231.1 | 189.4 | 105.8 | 76.9 | 38.4 | 43.8 | 75.9 | 1732.1 |
| Hours of sun | 121.7 | 109.6 | 112.0 | 104.0 | 129.7 | 165.8 | 171.5 | 207.3 | 218.9 | 220.4 | 199.4 | 163.8 | 1924.1 |
| Relative humidity (%) | 84.0 | 84.0 | 85.0 | 85.0 | 87.0 | 85.0 | 85.0 | 82.0 | 76.0 | 74.0 | 75.0 | 79.0 | 81.8 |
| Source: NOAA | |||||||||||||
Tourist activities
Tourism in the Park takes place in two different sectors: Amapari Sector and Oiapoque Sector.
In the Amaparí Sector, the Park is accessed through the city of Serra do Navio (the most common) or through a community in Pedra Branca do Amapari (generally in the summer). The trip is made by the Amapari river, using aluminum boats (90 km from Serra do Navio) to the rustic base of the park, where it is possible to stay in a camp structure adapted to Amazonian conditions (hammocks) and carry out activities such as trails, bathing in rivers and animal observation and plants.
In the Oiapoque sector, you can camp at Cachoeira do Anotaie, which is located on the Anotaie River, a tributary of the Oyapoque River. This waterfall is located 40 km from the city of Oiapoque, on a boat trip of aluminum. There is also the possibility of visiting Vila Brasil, a community located on the right bank of the Oyapoque River and located in front of the Franco-Guyanese indigenous community of Camopi. In this place there are small hotels and it is possible to know its sociocultural context, where the inhabitants, mostly merchants, provide services to the indigenous peoples of the neighboring country.