In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, the Yaguas National Park was born, a huge green lung that will protect millions of hectares of wild and roadless areas from deforestation. But not only. Peru, which established it, with its protection will also protect the indigenous people who are part of it
In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, the Yaguas National Park was born, a huge green lung that will protect millions of hectares of wild and roadless areas from deforestation. But not only. Peru, which established it, with its protection will also protect the indigenous people who are part of it.
Good news from the other side of the world. The remote rainforests located in the northeastern part of Peru, almost on the border with Colombia, will be protected, sheltered from wild development and the cutting of trees in the name of economic interests.
It is aso vast area that clouds that form above can even affect rainfall in the western United States. The region is home to species, especially unusual fish, which are different from all others on Earth.
In the Amazonian plains of Yaguas National Park, different types of rivers converge which in turn are home to distinct forms of aquatic life, which mix during the rainy season. This unusual cocktail of river waters produces biodiversity; more than 300 species of fish have adapted to forest life.
"This is a place where the forest extends to the horizon", he said Corine Vriesendorp, conservation ecologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, one of many organizations that have worked to secure the designation of the national park, Peru's highest level of protection. "This is one of the last great intact forests in the world."
Scientists studying the fauna and flora of the area will therefore be able to acquire information on the evolutionary processes, ecological health and geological history of the Amazon, in order to try to protect it as much as possible.
In Peru and elsewhere, political leaders, backed by strong civil society initiatives, are recognizing the effects of climate change and the need to mitigate it. For this, they are putting aside economic interests in the name of the commitments made under the Paris climate agreement. To support them also the indigenous people, who finally see their rights on their ancestral lands recognized.
More than 1.000 people, belonging to at least six different indigenous groups, live in a stretch of 200 km along the Yaguas and Putumayo rivers. For them, this place is “sachamama”, a Quechua word that means “mother jungle”, the sacred heart of the area, where the flora and fauna on which the natives depend live.
The latter are the descendants of the few survivors of slavery, torture and genocide in the name of industry and progress. For this reason, the establishment of the park by Peru is a great victory for them, in a sense a revenge.
For the past two decades, indigenous federations living around Yaguas have worked to protect the land by educating scientists and conservationists about its geography and biology. Eventually, they even managed to convince the government that those lands deserved to be saved.
"This level of protection provided by the categorization of the Yaguas National Park strengthens the control mechanisms against illegal activities such as mining and illegal logging, while preserving the important natural heritage it possesses" explains the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment.
READ also:
- Peru establishes one of the largest natural reserves in the world, to protect the Amazon and biodiversity
- Donate 400 hectares of land to Chile to create 5 protected parks
- Ecuador creates a new park in the Andes. And it limits tourism in the Galapagos
Peru's new park joins a network of parks and reserves recently created to preserve the territory of South American countries, including Ecuador, Chile and the Colombia.
Francesca Mancuso
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