The Importance of National Parks and Biological Reserves to Bird Conservation in the Atlantic Forest Region of Brazil

Abstract

Deforestation of Brazil's Atlantic Forest has threatened many plant and animal species with extinction. Here, the importance of protected areas the Atlantic Forest Region of Brazil for the conservation of many of the most endangered bird species the region is emphasized. A list of species is presented for four national parks and two biological reserves within the Atlantic Forest domain. Resumen. O desmatamento da Mata Atlantica no Brasil tern ameacado de extincao muitas espe*cies de plantas e animais. Este trabalho enfatiza a importancia das areas protegidas na regiao da Mata Atlantica para a conservac,ao de aves consideradas amec.adas de extincao. Listas de espe*cies de aves sao apresentadas para quatro parques nacionais e duas reservas biol6gicas pertencentes ao Dominio da Mata Atlantica. The Atlantic Forest of Brazil consists primarily of humid evergreen forest that is geographically isolated from similar vegetation (i.e., the Amazon) by drier (caatinga, cerrado, and chaco) habitats. This distinct biogeographic area contains a unique combination of ecosystems which as many as 75% of the plant species (Gentry 1992) and 29% of the bird species (Parker et al. 1996) are endemic. The avifauna contains species with close relatives both Andean and Amazonian regions (Sick 1985; Willis 1992). The original forest covered approximately 1 million km2 (12% of the Brazilian territory) principally along 4,000 km of the Brazilian coast, from Ceara the north to Rio Grande do Sul the south. The Atlantic Forest also extended inland within the states of Sao Paulo, Parana and Santa Catarina, as well as into Paraguay and Argentina. The entire region has had a long history of destruction (see review Sick and Teixeira 1979), and only a few small remnants remain relatively intact Brazil (Mittermeier 1988; Myers 1988). In 1992, the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve was established (Lino 1992), which will likely enhance protection of these habitats by bringing international attention to the region. With increasing human population Brazil, however, little hope remains for saving areas that do not lie within national parks, biological reserves, or other conservation units. Even such protected areas still suffer exploitation of timber, orchids, bromeliads, and Euterpe palms, as well as hunting, bird trapping, and other threats to the flora and fauna of the region (JMG, pers. obs.). We present here a preliminary list of birds and their relative abundances two biological reserves (BR) Sooretama, and Augusto Ruschi (formerly Nova Lombardia) and four national parks (NP) Tijuca, Itatiaia, Igua^u, and Aparados da Serra within Atlantic Forest ecosystems (Appendix; see IBAMA 1989 for description of sites). Together these areas contain 533 species (78% of the total Atlantic Forest avifauna), with 157 endemic (cf. Parker et al. 1996), 27 threatened and 44 near-threatened species (Table 1). Following Collar et al. (1992), threatened refers to species that are at risk' or in peril' of extinctions and encompasses endangered, vulnerable, rare, or species for which the status is indeterminate or insufficiently known. Near-threatened species are those that, while apparently not seriously danger of global extinction, give cause for concern (cf. Collar et al. 1992). Some of these areas have already been thoroughly studied