Red-browed Amazon  (Amazona rhodocorytha)

Like many other endemic birds of south-eastern Brazil's Atlantic forest, the red-browed Amazon has become locally extinct across most of its former range due to extensive deforestation and human encroachment during the last century. Habitat destruction has been rife and is primarily the result of conversion to plantations and pastureland and logging operations (2) (5). Surviving populations are small and fragmented, and now suffer from reduced foraging sites, increased competition for nesting areas, and the effects of genetic isolation (2). Yet deforestation continues, compounded by the ever-present threat of capture for the domestic pet trade, driving this rare parrot into a steep decline (2) (6). Sadly, the species is not even safe in reserves, with most of the 174 nestlings poached for the national and international cage-bird trade in the 1998 to 1999 breeding season reportedly coming from ‘protected areas'. Souvenirs containing feathers have also been seen for sale outside Monte Pascoal National Park (5).

The red-browed Amazon is protected under Brazilian law and occurs in 14 reserves, though most of these provide very little habitat protection on the ground and none are effective against poaching (5). Captive breeding, though difficult, has been successful in America and Europe and a global management plan for captive red-browed Amazons is now underway (2) (6). Reintroductions into the wild from captive stock may become an important conservation strategy in the future, but it is unlikely to successfully bolster numbers until sufficient habitat is secured that can sustain expanded wild flocks (2). Thus, law enforcement and in situ conservation to protect the diminishing Atlantic forests of Brazil must remain priorities in the protection of this and other endemic species if they are going to have any kind of future in the wild.