The South Amazon Ecotones Ecological Corridor (Portuguese: Corredor Ecológico dos Ecótonos Sul-Amazônicos) is a proposed ecological corridor connecting conservation units and indigenous territories that form an ecotone, or transition between the south of the Amazon rainforest and the north of the cerrado of Brazil.
The South Amazon Ecotones Ecological Corridor was one of five Amazon region corridors identified.
It covers the ecotones in the interconnection between the south of the Amazon rainforest and the cerrado of Central Brazil.
It is located in the most threatened Amazon region due to the advance of agriculture and ranching in the north of Mato Grosso and south of Pará.
The corridor was identified as vulnerable but relatively stable, regionally relevant in biological importance and moderate to high priority on a regional scale.
It included six priority areas in three main Amazon ecoregions.[4]
The most common forms of vegetation are open rainforest and seasonal semi-deciduous forest.
It is threatened by unsustainable logging and continued expansion of monocultures.
The corridor has great biodiversity, with an estimated 700 species of birds and 29 primate species.
Many species are considered endangered.
The conservation units and indigenous territories form four large blocks, which require some form of interconnection.[5]
Ayres, José Márcio; Da Fonseca, Gustavo A. B.; Rylands, Anthony B.; Queiroz, Helder L.; Pinto, Luiz Paulo; Masterson, Donald; Cavalcanti, Roberto B. (2005), Os Corredores Ecológicos das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil(PDF) (in Portuguese), Sociedade Civil Mamirauá, retrieved 2016-10-28