tambopata reserve puerto maldonado

The original Tambopata Candamo Reserved Zone   was created by a ministerial resolution in January 1990 as a step towards a larger policy of land management in the area and to protect the land whilst it was properly surveyed to determine the best land-use for it. The status of Reserved Zone gave the area greater protection than it had before, though a number of factors came into play from 1990 undermining the whole process begun by the Institute of Natural Resources (INRENA) who manages the area.

The area also become part of a cross border park system, joining the Madidi National Park in Bolivia, and becoming the largest protected zone of tropical forest on the continent of South America

manu national reserve madre de dios

Manu Biosphere Reserve, situated in the remote south-western region of the Amazon basin, is the largest and definitely the only untouched reserve in the neotropics. This unique reserve covers an area of one million eight hundred thousand hectares of undisturbed and pristine forest with the greatest biodiversity on earth. Therefore it was declared by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 1987 as World Heritage Site.

The majority of Manu is tropical rainforest, but it also includes three other highly distinct ecological levels: the puna - high altitude tundra like area; the mysterious cloud forest with its little studied ecosystem and the mountain rainforest.

Manu Biosphere Reserve is divided into three zones: the National Park which is in total conservation; the Cultural Zone for subsistence activities and the Reserved Zone for ecotourism.