French Guiana Photograph by © WWF-Canon/Roger LEGUEN   Eastern South America: Coastal French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and southeastern Venezuela Mangroves   5,600 square miles (14,600 square kilometers) -- about the size of Hawaii Relatively Stable/Intact

· Massive Mangroves
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Massive Mangroves

These mangroves--found around the Orinoco River Delta, the Gulf of Paria, and the San Juan River--are among the most extensive and structurally complex in Venezuela and can reach heights of 115 to 130 feet (35 to 40 m). This ecoregion is an important breeding ground for the brightly colored scarlet ibis and other birds. It also provides habitat to many reptiles, mammals, and fishes.

Special Features

Mangrove forests grow in an almost continuous band along the coasts of western Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. The water is cloudy, but rich in nutrients because of strong coastal currents that carry heavy sediment loads from the Amazon River. Other types of habitats are found here as well, including deciduous forests, muddy meadows, and swamp forests. In the Venezuelan part of this ecoregion, rainfall ranges from about 38 inches (950 mm) a year in the Gulf of Paria to 90 inches (2,250 mm) in the southern part of the Orinoco Delta. To the south, in French Guiana, rainfall decreases only slightly to 78 inches (2,000 mm) a year.

	The crab-eating raccoon is one of two species of raccoon in the Neotropics. The other is called the northern raccoon. Interestingly, both northern and crab-eating raccoons eat crabs. Their diet also includes crayfish, frogs, fish, and other freshwater animals.

Wild Side

Coppenamemonding, a wetland in northern Suriname, is an important breeding area for scarlet ibises, semi-palmated sandpipers, herons, and egrets. Other birds common to mangroves include rufous crab-hawks, mangrove warblers, clapper rails, white ibises, and brown pelicans. Mammals are similarly diverse and include capuchin and howler monkeys, crab-eating raccoons, river dolphins, West Indian manatees, and several species of bats. American crocodiles, arboreal snakes, spectacled caimans, and turtles inhabit these wetlands as well.

Cause for Concern

General threats include tourism, urban expansion, salt ponds, shrimp ponds, fishing, pollution, upstream deforestation, wildlife poaching, oil drilling, and the expansion of rice fields. Mangrove wood in particular is used for carpentry, firewood, and charcoal; the bark, fruit, and leaves are used for tanning leather. The trees also have medicinal uses.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.