Tumucumaque Mountains National Park

Created in 2002, Tumucumaque covers about thirty-eight thousand square kilometres of Amapa and northern Para along the frontier with French Guiana and Suriname, which makes it one of the largest protected tropical forest areas anywhere and larger than Belgium. It adjoins other reserves on both the Brazilian and Guianese sides to form a very large block of continuous forest. The Tumucumaque range itself is a modest line of hills rather than mountains, and the interest is in the scale and intactness of what it protects: jaguar, giant otter, harpy eagle, tapir and species still being described. It is included here as a fact of Brazilian geography rather than as a destination - there is no visitor route, no infrastructure and no realistic tourist access.

History

The Brazilian government declared the national park on 23 August 2002, after working with WWF. It became part of the Amapá Biodiversity Corridor, created in 2003, and its management plan was published on 10 March 2010 (Wikipedia, Tumucumaque Mountains National Park).

Highlights

• Thirty-eight thousand square kilometres - a park larger than Belgium.
• A continuous cross-border block - joined to reserves in French Guiana and Suriname.
• Hills, not mountains - the Tumucumaque range is a low frontier ridge.
• Intact Amazon fauna - jaguar, harpy eagle, giant otter and tapir.

When to go

August to November if authorised at all. Not a standard visit.

What to expect

There is no tourism here. Entry requires ICMBio authorisation and is granted for research and monitoring, and reaching the interior means chartered aircraft or weeks of river travel. Treat this as a place to know about rather than to plan around.

Nearby

Macapa sits on the Amazon mouth to the east; Oiapoque is the French Guiana border crossing.

Key facts