Amazonien de Guyane

The Guiana Amazonian Park was created in 2007 in the interior of French Guiana and protects some 20,300 km², which makes it the largest national park in France and in the European Union. It adjoins Tumucumaque Mountains National Park in Brazil, and together they form one of the largest blocks of protected tropical rainforest in the world.

It protects virtually intact primary Amazon rainforest, on a relief of granite inselbergs that emerge from the canopy and a dense hydrographic network of black-water and clear-water rivers. The biodiversity is extraordinary even by Amazonian standards, with hundreds of tree species per hectare, and it is home to jaguar, tapir, harpy eagle, spider and howler monkeys, and a fish and insect fauna still largely undescribed.

The park is inhabited: Wayana, Wayãpi, Teko and Aluku communities live inside it and in its zone of influence, along with Guianese Creoles, and its management model recognises traditional rights of use over the territory and involves the representatives of those communities in running the area. The main threat is illegal gold mining, which contaminates the rivers with mercury and directly affects the health of the riverside populations, and against which military operations are periodically mounted.