Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Amazon in Peru is threatened. Since the rubber boom of the early 20th century, countless Peruvian politicians have made extracting natural resources from the Amazon a priority. Current causes of deforestation in Peru include logging, oil extraction, chemical spraying and clearing of vegetation to eradicate coca plants, and colonization leading to the conversion of pristine forest into farms and pastures. Over-hunting also threatens the region’s biodiversity.

In many cases, the traditional territories of the Peruvian Amazon’s indigenous peoples have been lost to the encroachment of the Western world. In the Madre de Dios region in the southern Amazon, a gold rush that has been active since the 1970s and huge logging concessions are pushing the cultures of the Mashco-Piros, Amahuaca, Yaminahuas, and Yora tribes to the brink of extinction.

National Parks | Birdwatching | Rainforest 

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