The state of Tocantins is the youngest of the Brazilian states. With an area of 278,420.7 km², which formerly fully belonged to the state of Goiás and to the Mid-western region of Brazil, Tocantins was created by the Federal Constitution of 1988, despite claims for autonomy of the area having started in the 19th Century.
The state is located southeast the Northern region of Brazil, bordering at North with Maranhão; at East with Bahia, Piauí and Maranhão; at West, with Pará and Mato Grosso; and at South, with Goiás.
The Isle of Bananal, with an area of approximately 2 million hectares, is considered as the largest fluvial island in the world, between the states of Tocantins and Mato Grosso, and its jurisdiction is under the state of Tocantins. Limited by the rivers Araguaia and Javaés (right arm of the Araguaia river), the isle harbors, at north the National Park of Araguaia, with over 562 thousand hectares, sheltering different wild animals and thousands of birds live, besides an indian reservation in the south, with over 1.3 million hectares, where a few native villages are located.
And it was right here that the Project for Carbon Sequestration in the Isle of Bananal -Portuguese acronym PSCIB - was implemented, originally financed by the AES Barry Foundation, a philanthropic group linked to a UK gas utility company, involving NGO's and public and private institutions, and offering major social and environmental benefits for the communities involved in the project.
Tocantins enjoys a few of the most beautiful natural sceneries of the Country, with dense tropical forests, dunes (huge golden sand banks, up to 40 m high), rivers, waterfalls, mountains, lagoons and large plateaus, on top of a unique biodiversity. The Jalapão State Park, its name coming from the plant "jalapa-do-brasil", with around 34 thousand km², has one of the smallest demographic densities in Brazil, approximately 0.8 inhabitants/km².
