In addition, Rond nia has 5.5 million ha in various categories of state and municipal conservation units, including state forest reserves. Acre has set aside the 66,000 ha Antimari state forest reserve, among other conservation areas. The 70,000 Indians living in the Colombian Amazon have been decreed 18 million ha. Colombia is thus highly unusual in that 41 per cent of its Amazonian region is set aside from conventional development. More parks and reserves are planned for various parts of the Amazon basin.
Indigenous reserves are extensive, and more are likely to be created.
In July 1991, the Venezuelan government decreed an 8 million ha reserve for the Yanomamo, and the Brazilian government followed suit in November by creating a 9 million ha reserve for the widely scattered group in Roraima. Because people already live in them, Indian reserves are less prone to illegal incursions than are nominally protected parks and biological reserves. Still, they are not immune to invasions by gold seekers, farmers, and loggers. Indigenous peoples cannot always be expected to treat the forest in ways that can be considered harmonious with its long-term survival. As native people become increasingly integrated with national societies, some of them will forge new economic relationships, with potentially drastic consequences for the forest.