Regional Department of East Pará

The East Pará Regional Department (NRLP) serves as the Eastern Amazonia PPBio Administration Centre. Based at the Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará, the NRLP coordinates all Eastern Amazonian collection and curator related activities. The Department is also involved in the formation of partnerships with other Eastern Amazonian institutions, including implementation of new regional Departments and new PPBio research sites. Activities such as coordinating collection, management and training protocols are also integral functions of this Department which relies on 49 registered researches, 37 additional employees, 13 technicians and 28 graduate and post-graduate students. In addition to researchers from the Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará (MPEG), the regional Department receives additional support from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), EMBRAPA (CPATU), the Rural Federal University of Pará (UFRA) and the State University of Pará (UEPA). Additional, collaborating institutions are listed as follows: The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), the State University o São Paulo (USP) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, among others. The East Paraense region is the most deforested area in the Brazilian Amazon; known as the arc of deforestation, it has a huge level of impact on the three centres of endemism; Belém, Xingu and Tapajós. Both the Belém and Xingu centres of endemism cover areas in eastern Pará. However, terrain usage and deforestation intensity are not equally distributed between these centres, with the Belém centre of endemism being the most endangered, based on damage having occurred due to original pioneer occupation. In turn, the Tapajós and Xingu centres have recently suffered from an accelerated level of habitat loss, principally due to forest cover being removed and the land being used for extensive livestock farming. This situation is characteristic of a “sui generis” landscape, typically found within the most impacted Amazonian regions, in which the central habitat principally consists of a deforested landscape, maintaining nothing more than mere fragments and forest remnants. This scenario has resulted in PPBio activities in the east of the State of Pará becoming extremely urgent in terms of understanding biodiversity, principally within still well preserved areas. NRLP activities involve extensive research at the permanent PPBio site in the Caxiuanã National Forest, as well as a large number of other, less explored areas, in which exploratory expeditions are then carried out for the purposes of registering and analysing biodiversity. The regional Department is also responsible for some of the Amazon's most important biological collections, as well as full coordination of the Region's biodiversity Census.