page_title: Várzea forest
section_title: Human impacts
hierarchical_section_title: Várzea forest / Human impacts
caption_attribution_description: English: grove of Acai palms. Deutsch: Die Açaí-Palme oder Kohlpalme wächst in Überschwemmungswäldern (Várzea) im unteren Amazonasgebiet, insbesondere in den brasilianischen Bundesstaaten Pará und Amapá.
context_page_description: A várzea forest is a seasonal floodplain forest inundated by whitewater rivers that occurs in the Amazon biome. Until the late 1970s, the definition was less clear and várzea was often used for all periodically flooded Amazonian forests.
  Although sometimes described as consisting only of forest, várzea also contains more open, seasonally flooded habitats such as grasslands, including floating meadows.
context_section_description: One of the main impacts people have had on the várzea is deforestation for logging and agricultural purposes. Várzea forests show promise for timber production and forest management within Amazonia because they are less species rich than terra firme forests, but still with great amounts of timber. In addition, due to the fertile alluvial soils within várzea forests, trees typically grow more rapidly in the várzea than within terre firme forests and transport of logs is made easy by the use of the river. Most likely a result of the above reasoning, within Amazonia, logging has traditionally been centered in the várzea, and only in recent years has expanded into terra firme areas. In addition to deforestation of the várzea via logging, landowners may also dig channels to widen or connect streams in várzea areas in order to more easily transport logs or move to new, unexploited areas of the forest, which leads to loss of forest and soil degradation within the várzea habitat. It has been found that from 1976 to 1991 the areal extent of mixed species várzea had a net decrease of 25%, while other types of surrounding habitats, such as palm forest or herbaceous cover, increased. The main impacts associated with the loss of várzea areas were logging, heart of palm extraction, and agricultural conversion.
  An additional major impact from humans seen in the várzea is the extraction or mass production of the açaí palm (Euterpe oleracea) for the palm or for the well known açaí berry. The juice obtained from açaí is a major part of the diet for some regional populations within the Amazon and in some regions is the most important monetary crop. In açaí agroforests, other species surrounding clumps of the palm are commonly heavily pruned to remove competition.
  People have also had a severe impact on animal populations in the varzea. For example, selective hunting within the várzea of the red howler monkey (Alouatta seniculus) and the tufted capuchin monkey (Cebus apella) has had large effects on the regeneration of fig (Ficus sphenophylla) trees. Both species of monkey are known to be important seed dispersers within the várzea.
caption: Grove of Açaí Palms
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