Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has announced the creation of two new major protected areas in the Amazon, making it one of the world's most ambitious conservation efforts to date.

The decision to protect 3.7 million hectares in the Terra do Meio Ecological Station and the Serra do Pardo National Park was made in an effort to fight deforestation and land conflicts in the Brazilian State of Para.

"Conservation in the Amazon takes a giant step forward with this decree," said Carter Roberts, Chief Conservation Officer with WWF-US. "With these two critical pieces in place, we are creating a mosiac of contiguous protected areas, reserves, and indigenous territories connecting the savannah ecosystem of the south to the rain forests of the central Amazon."

The Amazon basin is one of the most environmentally important places on Earth containing the largest intact tropical rainforest, harbouring the richest variety of life, and generating more freshwater than anywhere else.

It is also suffering the greatest deforestation. Over 2.5 million hectares - more than half the size of Switzerland - has been lost annually for the past three consecutive years. The mounting toll of this unprecedented loss of forests cannot continue indefinitely without risking dramatic changes to the entire Amazonian ecosystem.

The two new parks, totalling an area nearly twice the size of the US State of Massachusetts, are both located in the State of Para, the region where Sister Dorothy Stang, an American nun, was murdered 12 February because of her outspoken efforts on behalf of landless peasants and wildlife in the Amazon.

"Strict protection should help brake the runaway deforestation and land tenure conflicts in which Sister Dorothy was such a courageous advocate, both for the poor and for conservation," added Roberts. "We congratulate President Lula for his leadership in moving this forward."

Social and environmental organizations, including WWF, have been pressing for the creation of these new protected areas in the Terra do Meio region for several years as a way of easing conflicts over logging and land use, protecting the rights of local residents and conserving the irreplaceable biodiversity of the Xingu river basin.

The creation of the mosaic establishes an ecological corridor of 25 million hectares in the Xingu river basin, connecting the Cerrado Savannah and Amazon Forest ecosystems through parks, reserves and indigenous land.

"Creating these protected areas is a vital measure to stop deforestation and pacify land conflicts in the region," said Rosa Lemos de Sá, WWF-Brazil's Conservation Director.

"A corridor this size will guarantee the maintenance of long-term ecological processes, as well as the basis needed for the maintenance of evolutionary processes of species in the Xingu river basin."

Threatened species include jaguars, macaws, and harpy eagles, animals that all require large areas of rainforest for their survival.