Living in Peru : your everyday companion

The Tambopata-Candamo reserved zone teems with plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals. There, in the heart of the Amazon jungle, in the southeastern corner of Peru, scientists have notched up records in biological bio-diversity. Thanks to backing from the Dutch Embassy, Conservation International and state natural resources entity Inrena have been able to launch a project to conserve eco-systems and ensure the sustainable use of natural resources in this stunning area.

Wedged between the departments of Madre de Dios and Puno, the Tambopata-Candamo reserved zone stretches across some 1.5 million hectares. To reach the area, there are good roads, river routes and constant air links. The zone borders the Bahuaja-Sonene Natural Park, an area which features three eco-systems: the yunga or cloud forest; the Amazon rainforest; and the palm-studded savanna, confirming the bewildering variety of existing eco-systems.

The biological diversity of the Tambopata-Candamo zone is in itself extraordinary. The area is home to 90% of Peru's species of amphibians, reptiles and fish species living in continental waters, in addition to half the country's known bird and mammal species.

Genetic diversity -the entire genetic heritage of all plant and animal species- is so vast that it guarantees that scientists can improve on species currently in use and the selection of varieties. However, genetic diversity is suffering from genetic erosion and could eventually become a non-renewable resource.

Why is there so much diversity?
The dizzying level of biological diversity in Tambopata could be due to the variety of landscapes, physiography, geological formations, climactic differences and areas where different life zones come together. All this would create diversified eco-systems, both for flora and fauna. It is a kind of self-reproducing natural game of dialectics. The process started in the Pleistocene Era, and its development features the characteristics of the regions that make up the area, and the characteristics of the life forms that exist there.

Conservation, protection, sustainable use
So much natural wealth means that more intense interventions are needed to conserve the environment of the Tambopata-Candamo reserved zone.

To tackle this challenge, Conservation International has started up a participate process aimed at achieving proper zoning for areas to make rural development compatible with the sustainable use of natural resources. The project to protect a natural area is an important example worldwide for the high degree of cooperation from the various stakeholders involved.

The project aims to create a biosphere reserve within the zone, a nucleus which would guarantee strict protection and which would be surrounded by buffer zones. These would be natural areas protected from direct use which would in turn be surrounded by transitional areas or of foreign cooperation where more intensive use is made of natural resources.

In Tambopata-Candamo, the areas uninhabited by human beings, and which feature the highest rates of bio-doversity would obligatorily be decreed areas granted strict protection. The sectors of the reserved zone bordering inhabited areas and which are currently tapped for their resources by the local population, are included in the proposal for a national reserve. And the inhabited areas will be included in the so-called Transition Zones within the model of a biosphere reserve as proposed by UNESCO.

Conservation and development
Conservation International must reinforce, consolidate and extend protection activities linked to sustainable development in this area. And to do so, it is important to prevent unplanned migration and the destructive use of natural resources by promoting sustainable economic activity in inhabited areas which are compatible with conservation.

This is why the project has created the Conservation and Development Centers (Cecodes), which are entities that promote protection activities in strategically located communities.

Productive activities include improving chestnut groves, a forestry industry based on harvesting the nuts, plus the implementation of production systems for coffee in the shade in the Upper Tambopata. which involves sustainable forest management. Community training and organization is a crucial aspect, as the local residents are to be the definitive stakeholders who will care for the area.

This is why the community is taking part in the diagnosis and identification of investment priorities being drawn up. Then they receive proper training in the management and usage of natural resources. The results are then shared with other stakeholders, protagonists, while at the same time integrating practices such as health, nutrition and environmental quality through the participation of local spromoters.

This important task will require years of dedication and effort that are well worth it.

The leap of the turtle
Recovering the forests and their species in the Tambopata jungle

Over the past eighteen months, environmentalist group Pro Naturaleza, with the backing of the Dutch Embassy, has been running a major five-year project in the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone and the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park, so as to provide the local inhabitants with an effective but sustainable development proposal.

One of the first things that struck Luis Benites when he first came to this part of the Madre de Dios department was the Ese'eja natives' taste for the newborn Taricaya, or yellow-headed river turtle.

As if to compensate, the pressure on the local resources was slight, as most of the settlers, of highland origins, were not fond of digging out the turtle's eggs (the Ese'eja are a tribe of some 600 natives who live in the Peruvian forest, and despite their cravings, do not constitute a threat to the species).

If there was any common denominator between the Madre de Dios and regions such as Loreto, it was the lamentable and dramatic decline in the number of Taricaya turtles, once abundant but today scarce. With both the tribe's source of protein and the species itself in danger, the recovery of the Taricaya species was taken on from the start as a crucial goal of the project, which got underway in October 1998.

The leap forward
Thanks to prior experience in the region and in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, Pro Naturaleza had the necessary know-how with which to tackle the problem. For a variety of reasons, the best solution was deemed to build artificial beaches and move entire nests there.

The first and most important motive was that it is impossible to keep guard over the nests made along miles and miles of sandy riverbanks. Then there is the fact that the nests made in the lower stretches of the riverbanks were washed away during the first floods of the season. Specialized predators like the iguana would then finish off the surviving nests. After all, even a successful nest always loses a certain percentage of newborn turtles, before and after they reach the water. The artificial beaches provide a way over these obstacles.

The matter has to be studied in detail, however. The eggs have to be buried in the same position they were found, as baby turtles have already established a fragile balance with other elements even inside the egg. Besides, the hatching season is in July.

Working together with the Ese'eja community in Sonene and the park authorities, the project released the first batch of turtles in October 1999, on the banks of the Heath River: 1,726 turtles which now have a good chance of living long enough to breed. The turtles had overcome the short but dangerous stage where their shells are fragile, making them vulnerable to predators.

Surveillance and answers
Another of the project tasks involved putting together a first-hand evaluation of the reality and views of the communities of natives and migrants who have settled around the edges of the reserve in the lowland jungle.

The project workers ran detailed workshops in eight communities in the Lower Tambopata and Heath Valleys. The project's organizers discovered that while the area is not densely populated, management of forestry resources, livestock and agriculture is poorly run, lacks technology and has failed to adapt to the jungle environment. This means that this small population is causing a fairly negative impact on the area, greater than could have been imagined.

This situation also affects the Ese'eja people, who are apparently finding it difficult to adapt to a more sedentary way of life than they were used to, based on economic activities that they were not familiar with (such as animal husbandry). The migrant communities have had a much harder time, as is usually the case. In many areas, they have exhausted the thin jungle soil, and now plan to move into land which is covered by the Reserved Zone.

These protected forests, which are now threatened by farmers' hatchets and their livestock, feature the highest levels of bio-diversity on Earth. What is more, they are superbly conserved forests, unlike most jungle areas their size around the world, making them a natural jewel. To ease the pressure on these protected areas, the project has started working with nearby communities to promote crops that have adapted to jungle conditions. The organizers have handed out improved seeds and introduced agro-forestry systems in the area. Many settlers have sowed improved seed that has degenerated. The project has also set up hencoop modules with 22 hens and roosters that have adapted to the harsh conditions of the area. Considering the high prices of meat in Puerto Maldonado, the main town in the area, these coops could form the basis of a profitable business concern. As a requisite to be able to implement the coop, farmers are required to have sown a field with improved corn, which will provide chicken feed.

With this successful management experience in protected areas under its belt, the project that Pro Naturaleza is developing in the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park and in the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone together with local communities aims to ensure that everyone, both Nature and local settlers, come out winning.