EcoWorldly

Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay up to date.

Lets keep visiting the biggest green spaces of the world, so we can remember what we are fighting for.

This time we will visit the second largest natural reserve of the American continent, a jungle known as Selva Misionera or Paranaense (also called Mata Atlántica in Brazil, and Atlantic Forest in english). This jungle has an enormous biological diversity, with more than 2000 floral species, 150 vegetal species per hectare, 400 bird species and a great variety of mammals, reptiles and insects.

Only one hundred years ago, the jungle enlarged over a million square kilometers covering different lands of the Paraguayan , Brazilian and Argentinean territory.

But nowadays it is one of the worst threatened ecosystem of the world. The unrestricted tree felling and the fauna exploitation have reduced the jungle surface significantly. Today remains only 54 thousands square kilometers, the 5 per cent of what it used to be a century ago. Moreover, only 10 per cent is protected area and sometimes even this protection is only a word in a paper, with no real observance.

The remaining lands of the jungle are currently divided into green islands isolated between farms, plantations, roads and urban centers in expansion.

The World Wide Fund For Nature has recently proposed a project to protect this jungle. Several governmental and non governmental organizations have joined them, as well as universities, independent experts and even local residents. The idea is to create a “Green Corridor” along the three nations ( Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay) in where the jungle could grow again and remain protected.

The Selva Misionera is blessed with large rains and the rain water reaches the 2 thousand millimeters per year. The humidity varies between 75 % and 90%, with important night dews. The temperatures are about 16 centigrade degrees in the winter and 25 in the summer, with maximums of 40 centigrade degrees.

The jungle is divided into three stratums. The ground is covered with leafs, branches, decomposed trunks, lichens, fungus and moss. The ground itself is a reddish land.

The first stratum its all about small plants, ferns, grass and pasture. The second stratum is compose by bushes, canes and tree sprouts. In the third stratum there are trees around 12 and 40 metres tall, fighting to get closer to the sun light.

Although there are 200 varieties of trees we will only mention the most important:

The lapacho negro: a tree of 30 meters high and a trunk diameter of 1.5 meters.

The Pino Parana: (Araucaria angustifolia) a colossal tree growing to 40 meters tall and 1.5 meter trunk diameter, with a parasol shaped top. This tree has been protected by the law since 1986 and it is forbidden its extraction outside the Misiones province in Argentina.

The Palo Rosa: (Aspidosperma polyneuron): the biggest tree in the jungle, growing to 40 meters tall and reaching the 1.6 trunk diameter. It has a straight stick of 20 or 30 meters. This specimens is scarce because the cut downs in the pass but today the palo rosa is protected by the Iguazu National Park .

Images: Flickr