Encompassing 2.7 million ha of Amazonian tropical broadleaf forest, the Alto Purús Reserved Zone (APRZ) of eastern Peru is home to some of the last uncontacted indigenous people on earth and serves as critical habitat corridors for rare and highly endangered carnivores. Concerned by rumors of increased logging activity along its borders, ParksWatch joined a team of conservation biologists affiliated with Duke University’s Center for Tropical Conservation on a one-month expedition along the remote upper stretches of the Curanja and Alto Purús Rivers. What we found was a near-pristine wilderness area threatened by logging. Our recommendations call for the removal of the protected area category reserved zone-a temporary category offering only minimal protection-and the area made a national park, thus ensuring the protection of its remarkable biological and cultural integrity.
Objectives
Our objectives were fourfold: 1) to assess the effect of the logging industry on both the forest within the reserve, as well as on the land-use strategies of native communities in the reserve’s buffer zone; 2) to assess the general health of carnivore populations, in particular the short-eared bush dog and giant river otter, both known to be good indicators of ecosystem health; 3) to document the composition, diversity, and community structure of the forest as part of a larger tree plot study being conducted throughout the Amazon basin; and 4) to evaluate the overall conservation status of the reserved zone.
Strategic location
The APRZ is located in the department of Ucayali in the most remote part of Peru. It is contiguous to Manu National Park (1,716,295 ha) to the south and shares part of its northern and eastern borders with four Brazilian Indigenous territories (Jurua, Xinané, Mamoadate, and Rio Envira) and Brazil’s recently proposed 670,000 ha Chandless Biological Reserve. Nearby but not contiguous protected areas include the Reserve for Indigenous Nahua and Kugapakori people to the south, the Apurimac Reserve to the west, the Amarakaeri Reserved Zone to the southeast, and the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park and the Tambopata National Reserve further to the southeast.
Maps: Peru and the Alto Purús Reserved Zone
The APRZ is strategically located as the central link to one of the largest networks of tropical protected areas in the world (see Map 1). Originally 5.1 million ha, the APRZ was reduced nearly in half to 2.7 million hectares in 2000, with the removed area divided into logging concessions and community parcels for mestizo colonists and indigenous tribes.
Timber Extraction
The great majority of the APRZ is still in a pristine state. In the past, small-scale selective logging of cedar (Cedrela odorata) and mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) using axes did occur, but only along the banks of large rivers so that the huge trunks could be transported via river. The chainsaw arrived in the region just 3 years ago and its use is becoming more prevalent in buffer zone communities. Timber extraction is the main source of income for colonists and indigenous people alike, although at the time of our expedition Peru’s National Institute of Natural Resources (INRENA) had suspended all logging in the buffer zone. It is unclear when the ban will be lifted and new logging permits granted.
ParksWatch did not find any evidence of recent logging inside the APRZ; however, we were informed of extensive logging occurring in the western side of the reserve in the upper headlands of the Urubamba River along the Cujar and Curiuja Rivers near a place called Alerta or Dos Bocas (see Map 2).
Map 2: The Alto Purus Reserved Zone boundary in red. Year 2000 boundary in black.
Although we were unable to document this logging, our informant described a crude road on which several tractors drag logs from the Purús basin to the Sepahua River, where they are floated down the Urubamba and into the town of Sepahua. INRENA personnel have flown over the area and confirm the presence of roads totaling 30 km. This exploitation of reserve forests continues despite Forestry and Wildlife Law No. 27308, which has banned the extraction of cedar and mahogany for 10 years.
Large ranging carnivores
Despite occasional hunting in the reserved zone, wildlife still abounds, including large carnivores like the narrow-snouted spectacled caiman, (Caiman crocodylus), black caiman, (Melanosuchus niger) ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), margay (Leopardus wiedii), and jaguar, (Panthera onca). Our study was primarily interested in two of the rarest predators in the Amazon basin: the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) and the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis). Five otters were observed outside the reserved zone near the buffer zone community of Mapalfa, so we assume that other populations exist upstream in the more remote reserved zone. Despite abundant tracks, we were unable to trap or film a dog during the expedition. However, an assistant of expedition member Dr. Renata Leite Pitman, trapped an Atelocynus microtis on August 8th, one week after our departure. Dr. Leite Pitman returned on the 10th to fasten a radio collar and release the dog. During the week of September 15, she returned again only to find that the dog had been shot and killed by local hunters.
Tree diversity
The botanical team, led by Dr. John Terborgh and Dr. Nigel Pitman, inventoried tree communities at three sites, with the goal of documenting their composition, diversity, and community structure, and their similarity to forests in adjacent Madre de Dios. They established four 1-ha tree plots, three in terra firme forest and one floodplain forest-identifying or vouchering more than 2,300 individual trees. On the upper reaches of the Alto Purús, where the Peruvian park service maintains a field station at Caobal, and on the upper Curanja, where a long-term ethnobotanical survey is underway in the Cashinahua community of Colombiana, trees in the plots were tagged and mapped in order to serve as permanent resources for future researchers. In the Colombiana plot, Cashinahua naturalists working with ethnobotanist James Graham provided indigenous names and uses for the trees.
Both the upland and flooded forests we studied in the Purús drainage are closely similar in composition to those in Madre de Dios and Manu National Park. As in Manu, the Purús forests are dominated by palms-mostly Iriartea deltoidea, Astrocaryum murumuru, and Attalea butyracea-which typically account for 10-20% of all trees. A suite of other tree species that are common in Manu and over large areas of western Amazonia are also well-represented. Tree diversity is moderate and endemism is low, as is typical of forests in SW Amazonia.
Conservation status
The most striking result of our fieldwork and overflights of the region to date is that tree communities here remain intact across such vast areas. Human impacts are restricted to tiny patches outside the reserved zone along the major rivers, where selective mahogany logging, hunting, and small-scale agriculture have affected only a miniscule proportion of the forest. As a result, the canopy here stretches unbroken from beyond the Brazilian border all the way to the Andes, some 300 km to the SW, forming one of the most significant wilderness corridors in the upper Amazon.
Harbored within this wilderness, inside the borders of the APRZ, live at least two tribes of uncontacted indigenous groups. In June, in an effort to contact one of the groups, the United States-based Evangelical Pioneer Mission hired local indigenous men to clear two hectares of forest near reserve boundaries along the Curanja River, in an area where one of the tribes is known to be active (see Photo Gallery).
By encroaching on these pristine forests, leaving bundles of material goods on the banks of the rivers near hunting trails, and enlisting the services of Yines natives from the Urubamba River who speak a dialect similar to one of the uncontacted groups, the missionaries are actively trying to “civilize” one of earth’s last uncontacted peoples. These uncontacted peoples have chosen voluntary isolation, and somehow have been able to avoid the development, missionaries, and logging pressure encroaching on their homeland. ParksWatch believes that these groups should be able to live in isolation if they choose to do so, which will not be possible if their homeland is not protected.
The remoteness of Alto Purús has prevented the migration and subsequent exploitation that has plagued so many other lowland forests. However, a group of local mestizo authorities led by the Catholic priest from the local parish is carrying out a publicity campaign in favor of a highway to connect the town of Puerto Esperanza-the region’s economic hub with approximately 1000 inhabitants-to the town of Iñapari in Madre de Dios in southern Peru (see Map 2). The priest has taken this matter very seriously, promoting the idea that the highway will bring development, lower prices of goods, and a better way of life to both mestizos living in Puerto Esperanza and indigenous communities alike. Furthermore, he openly considers the Alto Purús Reserved Zone as an impediment to development and lobbies for its removal. Due to financial limitations within the government, it is unlikely that this proposal will be seriously considered in the near future, but it does merit mention as its popularity gains momentum in Puerto Esperanza.
Conclusion
As logging concessions and private land holdings become more prevalent along its boundaries, local people and loggers are encroaching into the reserved zone’s interior with more regularity. Declaring the Alto Purús Reserved Zone a national park will protect land that rare animals and uncontacted people alike depend on, and will ensure the connectivity of a massive network of Brazilian and Peruvian protected areas. ParksWatch presented the results from the expedition and our recommendations at a workshop held at INRENA headquarters on November 7th 2002 (see ParksWatch News). The results of the workshop are currently being compiled into a book, which will be published in January 2003. Please see ParksWatch’s Park Profile on the Alto Purús Reserved Zone for more information.
The Evangelical Pioneer Mission located within the reserve on the Alto Purús River.
Photos: (left) Cashinahua men and a felled Mahogany tree in the buffer zone. (right) The recently cleared farm plot being used by the Pioneer Mission to contact people living in voluntary isolation. The plot is located on the Curanja River just outside the reserve zone.
Photos: (left) Dr. Leite-Pitman collaring a short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis) trapped in the buffer zone. The dog was shot and killed by local hunters in mid-September. (right) Cashinahua hunters and white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) in the buffer zone.
ParksWatch: November 2002