Distribution of Vegetation Types The only thorough treatment of Amazonian vegetation presently available is that of the RADAMBRASIL Project, based on side-scanning radar of the 1970s. This imagery and the resultant mapping units are derived mainly from altitude, dissection and other geomorphological features, but give little information about vegetation communities or conservation priorities. It is now possible to make a much more accurate assessment of vegetation using new satellite images, on which previously undescribed vegetation types have already been identified. The latest vegetation map of Amazonia by IBGE (the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) - IBAMA (the Brazilian Federal Environmental Institute) 1988 (copies at Kew and OFI) is at 1:5 million, and is based on satellite imagery of the early 1970s. At the time of preparing this project proposal, the latest LANDSAT analysis covering all Brazilian Amazonia was for imagery of 1978. More recent LANDSAT and NOAA imagery was available for some parts of Amazonia but not for Amazonas State (Fearnside 1990). This project has been designed to analyse 1988 and 1989 imagery newly available at INPE, but may now be able to use 1990 or later imagery as well. This pilot project will redefine the Amazon vegetation types on satellite images, coupled with herbarium data, analysis of stereo pairs of aerial photographs, overflights, visits to the field for collections and standardised descriptions. The study will concentrate on 5-8 sites within a 130 km radius of Manaus. Production of Flora Floristic inventory of the Brazilian Amazon has been concentrated in several collection sites, due to their ease of access. The concentration of collecting locations has meant that many rare communities are poorly known and remain low conservation priorities. The pilot-scale vegetation surveys of this project will help develop unbiased methods for identifying important communities, in spite of the lack of uniformity in collecting density. During a ten-year bilateral plant collecting effort, the Projeto Flora Amazonica, about 73,000 plants were collected, doubling the size of the INPA herbarium. However, due to the vast size of the Amazon regional and the itinerant nature of the 46 collecting expeditions that took part in Projeto Flora Amazonica, only a few sites are yet well collected. Foremost among these sites is the Manaus area. The Ducke Reserve near Manaus contains some 10,000 ha of terra firme (dry land) forest about 7000 specimens have already been collected here between 1955 and 1978, representing at least 1500 species of vascular plants. This is the best collected site in the Amazon, and clearly the most suitable area for further effort towards compiling a comprehensive Flora.

To increase knowledge of botany and vegetation types of Central America

• Published vegetation maps and descriptions for region around Manaus.
• Published Checklist and identification guide to the flora of Ducke Reserve.
• Published taxonomic revisions of important families and genera.
• INPA botanists trained on courses at Kew, and on-the-job.
• Revision and redetermination of specimens in INPA Herbarium and other collaborating herbaria.