Day 239 - 23 Apr 96 - Page 19

     
     1        up to what anyone would recognise as a full closed canopy
     2        rainforest.
     3
     4        If we look in particular at these purple lines going along
     5        the course of the river there, you will see the branching
     6        river there, it has got tributaries such as the Rio
     7        Manissaua-Micu, Rio Arraias and Rio Ronuro.  Those areas
     8        are actually surrounded by all alluvial forest.  It is
     9        called either "alluvial forest" or "gallery forest" and a
    10        gallery forest is so-called because it runs in a sort of
    11        corridor along the river and that is very similar in type
    12        to one's sort of childhood impression of a rainforest; it
    13        has got very tall trees with a more or less continuous
    14        canopy at least along the line of the river, very rich in
    15        wildlife, often with under stories and also all sorts of
    16        spacial heterogeneity of complexity.  You will see various
    17        other zones marked on the map which ----
    18
    19   Q.   Can I just ask before you continue?
    20        A.  Sorry.
    21
    22   Q.   You had said before that the Amazon regions to you extend
    23        beyond the official political frontier?
    24        A.   Yes.
    25
    26   Q.   Amazonia Legal.  Can you explain what you mean by that?
    27        A.   Yes.
    28
    29   Q.   So we can see the whole picture first before we look at the
    30        detail?
    31        A.   Absolutely.  I think one thing I can say about the
    32        vegetation of an area like Brazil is that you cannot draw
    33        straight lines and I think at least one appropriate means
    34        of viewing a hydro-geographical or a bio-geographical zone
    35        is to see it as a drainage system and certainly the Amazon
    36        basin clearly is the area that drains into the Amazon and
    37        we will see very clearly around Sinop that these rivers
    38        drain into the tributaries of the Amazon.  The branching
    39        river I have mentioned just now drains into the Rio Xingu,
    40        which is a tributary of the Amazon.
    41
    42        Just on the western side of Sinop we see a series of rivers
    43        which drain eventually into the Rio Tapajos via the Juruena
    44        and the Rio Sao Manuel which, of course, the Tapajos is
    45        another tributary of the Amazon, so it is very clear that
    46        that whole region, and going down some way south of Sinop,
    47        is part of the Amazon drainage system, i.e. part of the
    48        Amazon basin, and I think in most peoples' minds that shows
    49        clearly that it is actually part of Amazonia, as one might
    50        describe it, and Amazonian has always been a fairly loose 
    51        concept but the Amazon basin is generally considered to be 
    52        Amazonia. 
    53
    54   Q.   The official Amazon Legal region seems to be, I think on
    55        this map actually is ----
    56        A.   I think it incorporates the State of Mato Grosso.
    57
    58   Q.   The whole region?
    59        A.   Yes, I think that is correct.
    60