Manu National Park
The Manu National Park is a protected natural area located in the southeast of Peru, partially located in the departments of Madre de Dios and Cuzco, between the provinces of Manu and Paucartambo. With an area of 1,909,806 hectares or square hectometres; It is divided into three large zones: the national park, with 1,532,806 ha, the Reserved Zone, with 257,000 ha, and the Transition or Cultural Zone, with 120,000 ha.
It extends from 300 m s. no. m., at the confluence of the Manu River with the Madre de Dios River, up to more than 4000 m a.s.l. no. m. at the top of the Apu Kañajhuay mountain. Some researchers believe that the Paititi or lost city of the Incas is found in the virgin areas of this reserve.
The national park was created on May 29, 1973. In 1977, Unesco recognized the Park as a Biosphere Reserve and in 1987 declared it a World Heritage Site.
History
Inca and colonial
In the Manu Biosphere Reserve there are testimonies of ancient cultures such as the Pusharo petroglyphs, a set of engravings whose origin and meaning have not yet been explained, which were first reported by Father Vicente from Cenytagoya in 1921 and the Shinkibenia river, a tributary of the Palotoa river, is located on the right bank; other petroglyphs are found in the Q'eros river, on the great rock "Xinkiori", legendary for the huachipaeris. Similarly, there is knowledge of an archaeological site in the Mameria area, located at the headwaters of the Piñi Piñi and Alto Tono rivers.
The Manu area has a history marked by the arrival of foreign people, from the times of the Inca empire in which the Inca Pachacútec and Túpac Yupanqui annexed this area to their empire, until the arrival of the Spanish who shortly After the invasion of Cuzco they founded the town of Paucartambo, a place where they established haciendas and parcels and where King Carlos III of Spain also ordered the construction of a bridge to facilitate the trade of products from the area; This is how this valley began to supply Cuzco with products such as coca, sugar, cotton, chili peppers, wood, and others.
In March 1567, the Spanish Juan Álvarez Maldonado in charge of the province of Mojos undertook a 37-day journey to make the first expedition from Paucartambo to the current town of Pillcopata. In May of the same year, Manuel de Escobar mounted a second expedition that followed the course of the Madre de Dios River to the Manu River.
Republican
In 1861, Colonel Faustino Maldonado undertook a new expedition from Paucartambo to the Madre de Dios River. It was in his honor that 30 years later, the rubber baron, Carlos Fitzcarrald, would baptize the mouth of the Tambopata River as Puerto Maldonado, the current capital of the department of Madre de Dios.
In the low jungle, the indigenous populations were affected by extractive activities at the end of the 19th century, the exploitation of rubber marked the beginning of intrepid companies such as that of Fitzcarrald, one of the most famous rubber tappers of his time. However, the Manu area was partially exploited. Rubber activities ceased in the 1920s when the resource, unable to recover from intensive exploitation and competition from prosperous and less expensive crops on the Asian continent, began to decline.
Between the 1950s and 1960s, the construction of the final section of the highway (now known as the Vía Interoceánica Sur) began the extraction of cedar and mahogany timber, the work of haciendas, and later the extraction of skins fine (otorongo, tigrillo and river wolves). More recent are oil exploration activities. Meanwhile, in the Andean zone, agricultural activities were affected by the agrarian reform begun in 1969.
Starting in the 20th century, the religious presence became more significant. In 1902 the Dominican Fathers founded their first mission in Asunción. In 1908 they installed the second missionary post, San Luis del Manu, at the mouth of the Manu River; After leaving the mission, they settled in the Palotoa River mission (in the Pantiacolla area), which, after being devastated by a flood, was definitively located in Shintuya in 1958.
Creation
In 1963 the Manu National Forest was created. At the suggestion of Flavio Bazan and Paul Pierret, an expert from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), in 1965 it was proposed to create a park there national. The importance of the place was confirmed by the 1966 report of the British adviser Ian Grimwood. In 1968, the area was declared a National Reserve and later, the Manu National Park was established on May 29, 1973, by means of Supreme Decree 0644-73-AG, in order to preserve its heritage. natural and cultural for the benefit of present and future generations; That same purpose determined the recognition by Unesco of the Manu Biosphere Reserve, which today covers a territory of 1,881,200 ha in the provinces of Paucartambo in Cuzco and Manu in Madre de Dios. Its limits were drawn applying the principle of natural limits and the domain of basins. However, the limit of the Park in the Manu river itself had to stop at the confluence with the Panagua river due to the fact that there was oil exploration.
Distribution
- La zone or Manu National Park
It is intended for protection and only anthropological and biological research activities are allowed, limited to the observation of life and ecological processes in their natural form; The park is home to the Cocha Cashu Biological Station, one of the most important tropical forest research centers. The place is intangible and to visit it you must have a special authorization.
- La Manu Reserved Area
It is located in the lower part of the Manu River. In this area, tourist activities (organized by authorized agencies) and research with minimal manipulation are allowed. It is possible to observe a great landscape and natural wealth due to the large amount of flora and fauna visible from the rivers and lakes (river meanders that close and remain isolated from the main channel, forming lagoons that maintain a great wealth of fauna). Visits are controlled. It extends from the Panagua River ravine to Boca Manu.
- La buffer zone or Cultural area
It is made up of the banks of the Madre de Dios River and the high Andean territories that border the southern part of the reserve, between the dividing line of the national park and the Mapacho River. This area is dominated by settler populations who carry out agricultural, livestock and forestry activities and who have basic health, education and development services, although in an incipient manner.
Around the Manu biosphere reserve there are other areas such as the Kugapakori, Nahua, Nanti and others territorial Reserve, the Megantoni National Sanctuary and the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve; These territories and those of the Mapacho river basin, in addition to the expansion of the current cultural zone (which would later be called the Andean and Amazon Multiple Use Zone) are considered within the studies and proposals to integrate them into the Manu biosphere reserve..
Geography
In its vast territory, from the high punas to 3500 m, covered with grass, where the dry air and temperatures vary depending on whether it is in the sun or under the shade, and depending on the months reaching -9 °C up to 22 °C between the months of September and April and the rainy season, snow or hail between October and April; descend through an extensive strip of transition called "wooded scrub" which descends to approximately 2600 m s. no. m. from where the vegetation forms a forest, an area in which to date around 450 species of plants have been identified and the fat where rainfall can reach between 500 and 1000 mm.
The "Lower Montane" They develop between 2,200 and 1,650 m; Finding trees up to 25 m high covered with families of orchids and ferns that grow on the walls of the deep precipices. Among them you can find araceae with broad leaves as well as tree ferns that characterize the place. In these mist-covered forests, there is a cold climate and a constantly humid landscape between shadows and penumbras.
The "Montane rain forest", also known as "cloud forest", between 600 m a.s.l. no. m. and the 1650 m in the fog it is constant to cover a splendid landscape full of vegetation, here there are trees up to 30 m high that are invaded by orchids and ferns, forming a dense forest interrupted only by small streams and waterfalls that are born and lost between the vegetation. Currently it is estimated that this area contains no less than 200 different species of trees with a density that can exceed 700 per hectare. Here the temperature varies between 20 and 25 °C and can drop at night to 16 or 18 °C.
The "tropical humid forest" or also called "low jungle" It extends over the great Amazonian plain, from 300 to 600 m. This is undoubtedly the most representative and extensive landscape of the Reserve. Here, in the area of the meandering Manu River, the trees are gigantic in height; On the high tops of these, some species of trees can emerge, such as the shihuahuaco (Dipteryx micrantha) and the lupuna (Ceiba pentandra). The park is located in the provinces of Manu and Paucartambo (Departments of Madre de Dios and Cusco, respectively), encompassing the eastern slopes of the Andes in the Peruvian Amazon. The limits to the north are the basin that separates the catchment basins of the Manu and the Ríos de las Piedras (72°01'W, 11°17'S), to the area where the south of the Paucartambo highway in the north-west it becomes Tres Cruces (71°30'W, 13°11'S), east of the region on the left bank of the Alto Madre de Dios river to the Pilcopata river, department from Cusco (71°10'W, 12°18'S), and to the west of the basin that separates the catchment basins of the Manu and Camisea rivers, also the limit between the departments of Cusco and Madre of God (72°22'W, 11°45'S).
In the park there are human populations of Amazonian natives belonging to different ethnic groups that have inhabited it since time immemorial, whose number is estimated at around 1000 indigenous people;[citation required] However, there is also a Quechua population of approximately 200 people in the Callanga area.
Climate
The rainy season or low season runs from December to March, but unexpected rains can occur throughout the year; temperatures in the low areas vary between 35 °C during the day and 20 °C at night.
Flora and fauna
It is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. In Manu it is possible to find all the variety of ecological floors that exist in the Amazon and this makes it one of the most appreciated protected areas. In a single hectare, up to 250 species of trees have been found. In the Manu Biosphere Reserve, 223 species of mammals and 1,005 of birds have been recorded. It also holds the world record for diversity of amphibian species (155) and reptiles (132) for a protected area.
In the park you can find mammals, such as: the otorongo, the black tiger, the sachavaca, the peccary, the peccary, the deer, the ashen deer, the river wolf, the capybara, the monkey preserve, the black maquisapa, woolly monkey, white machin monkey, black machin monkey, among others.
As for insect species, it is estimated that there are about 30 million in this region. In particular, more than 1,300 species of butterflies, 650 species of beetles, 136 species of dragonflies and more than 300 species of ants were recorded.
Importance of Tourism
The Manu National Park is of vital importance for the community, since it generates a work space for the population where it provides direct and indirect economic and social benefits. In the case of the Manu National Park, among the activities that can be carried out we can find: camping in the lower basin of the Manu river (there are five camping areas), in addition to visiting three viewpoints or breakwaters, a metal tower 18m high height in cocha otorongo, from which you can see the enormous green horizon of the park. You can also go hiking, navigate the rivers and streams to appreciate the rich diversity of animal species, as well as bird watching. The “Manu Route” is one of the most famous in the world, due to the great diversity of birds that you can find.
The tourism that takes place in the Manu National Park is a nature tourism, in which the tourist is carried away by nature and cultures. Likewise, the motivation of the same, is foreseen by the diversity of flora and fauna. Sustainable development tourism is also practiced in the Manu National Park, and this, with the aim of seeking a balance between the conservation of biodiversity and the well-being of the population. In this way, its care is arranged by an environmental policy, in which the community and visitors have to be aware.
The Manu National Park is visited annually by about 2,500 tourists, of which 85% are foreigners, because it is specialized tourism that generates a high cost, said the head of the National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP), Pedro Gamboa.
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