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News articles on Peru

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Mongabay.com news articles on peru in blog format. Updated regularly.

Peru fails to investigate murder of Amazon environmental leader
(4/22/2008) Peruvian authorities failed to respond to requests for protection from Julio Garcia Agapito, the environmental leader who was gunned down in southeastern Peru in late February, according to a new petition which calls for an investigation into his murder. Julio Garcia's killing at the hands of an illegal logger set off international outcry and highlighted rising tensions over the paving of a highway in the Amazon rainforest.


Do parks worsen deforestation through 'leakage'?
(3/17/2008) The creation of protected reserves may be pushing development to neighboring areas, confounding overall conservation efforts in regions where development pressures are high. Such "leakage" -- as the displacement is called -- makes it difficult to assess the effectiveness of protected areas strategies.


Amazon environmentalist gunned down in Peru
(3/14/2008) After reporting a truck loaded with mahogany illegally logged from the Amazon rainforest, Don Julio Garcia Agapito, a Peruvian environmentalist was gunned down by unknown assailants on February 26th, 2008. He is survived by his family.


Peru to replant 10 million hectares of forest
(1/2/2008) Peru plans to reforest more than 10 million hectares of logged and degraded forest over the next 10 years according to the country's National Institute of Natural Resources (INRENA). The government hopes the moves will reduce pressure on native forests and bolster the plantation forest industry.


Rainforest destruction increasingly driven by corporate interests, not poverty
(12/18/2007) Tropical deforestation is increasingly enterprise-driven rather than the result of subsistence agriculture, a trend that has critical implications for the future of the world's forests, says Dr. Thomas Rudel, a researcher from Rutgers University. As urbanization and government-sponsored development programs dwindle in the tropics, industrial logging and conversion for large-scale agriculture -- including oil palm plantations, soy farms, and cattle ranches -- are ever more important causes of forest destruction.


Tropical forests face huge threat from industrial agriculture
(12/5/2007) With forest conversion for large-scale agriculture rapidly emerging as a leading driver of tropical deforestation, a new report from the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) suggests the trend is likely to continue with Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Peru, and Colombia containing 75 percent of the world's forested land that is highly suitable for industrial agriculture expansion. Nevertheless the study identifies forests that may be best suited (low population density, unsuitable climate and soils) for "Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation" (REDD) initiatives which compensate countries for preserving forest lands in exchange for carbon credits.


Uncontacted Amazon tribe spotted by plane in Peru
(10/21/2007) A group of uncontacted indigenous tribesmen were spotted by plane in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon last month, according to Survival International. The region is threatened by illegal mahogany loggers.


Peru's deforestation rate surged in 2005
(8/30/2007) Peru's deforestation rates surged in 2005, according to new analysis published in the journal Science.


Low deforestation countries to see least benefit from carbon trading
(8/13/2007) Countries that have done the best job protecting their tropical forests stand to gain the least from proposed incentives to combat global warming through carbon offsets, warns a new study published in Tuesday in the journal Public Library of Science Biology (PLoS). The authors say that "high forest cover with low rates of deforestation" (HFLD) nations "could become the most vulnerable targets for deforestation if the Kyoto Protocol and upcoming negotiations on carbon trading fail to include intact standing forest."


New flycatcher bird species discovered in Peru
(8/13/2007) Scientists have discovered a previously unknown species of bird in dense bamboo thickets in the Peruvian Amazon.


Experts: parks effectively protect rainforest in Peru
(8/9/2007) High-resolution satellite monitoring of the Amazon rainforest in Peru shows that land-use and conservation policies have had a measurable impact on deforestation rates. The research is published in the August 9, 2007, on-line edition of Science Express.


Toll road could raise money for Amazon conservation
(7/15/2007) Southeastern Peru is arguably the most biodiverse place on the planet. A new highway project, already under construction, poses a great threat to this biological richness as well as indigenous groups that live in the region. While its too late to stop the road, called the Carretera Transoceanica or Interoceanic Highway, there are ways to reduce its impact on the forest ecosystem and its inhabitants.


450 years of Amazon research reviewed
(7/2/2007) Research on the Peruvian Amazon is largely inaccessible to the people who could make most use of it, reports a comprehensive review of 2,202 texts published over the past 450 years on the Madre de Dios region of southwestern Peru. The study recommends the establishment of "a Web-based digital library for Neotropical nature" to make research more widely available.


Peanuts, cotton, squash first farmed in Peru 6,000-10,000 years ago
(6/28/2007) Anthropologists have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming. The study, which show that the crops were grown in the Peruvian Andes 5,000-10,000 years ago, is published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.


Past global warming produced monster penguins
(6/25/2007) Scientists have discovered fossil remains of a giant species of penguin that lived some 40 million years ago in what is now Peru. Coupled with the finding of a smaller species from the same time period, the remains reveal that early penguins responded differently to natural climate change than scientists would have expected. The results are published in the PNAS Online Early Edition the week of June 25-29, 2007.


Mahogany logging threats tribal people, says report
(5/30/2007) Ahead of the CITES meeting in the Hague, a new report alleges widespread illegal mahogany logging in Peru.


Peru makes progress on illegal mahogany logging
(5/16/2007) Last month Inrena, Peru's environmental agency, implemented regulations for mahogany loggers that will now require forest concession holders to replant ten times the logged amount of trees. Overall, the initiative calls for the production and establishment of one million of mahogany plantlets over 5 years.


Photos of world's tiniest owl, recently found in Peru
(3/23/2007) One of the world's smallest owls was spotted for the first time in the wild by researchers monitoring the Area de Conservacion Privada de Abra Patricia -- Alto Nieva, a private conservation area in northern Peru, South America. Biologists consider the Long-whiskered Owlet (Xenoglaux loweryi) "a holy grail of South American ornithology."


Archeologists find oldest solar observatory in the Americas
(3/1/2007) Archeologists from Yale and the University of Leicester have identified an ancient solar observatory at Chankillo, Peru as the oldest in the Americas with alignments covering the entire solar year, according to an article in the March 2 issue of Science.


High fashion driving conservation efforts of rare species?
(2/21/2007) Whimsical tastes of the fashion industry are sometimes blamed for the depletion of rare wildlife. The shatoosh craze of the 1980s and 1990s led to severe declines in population of the Tibetan antelope or chiru, while a current resurgence in tiger fur fashions in China has put further pressure on the endangered cat. Demand for rhinoceros horn to adorn decorative dagger handles in Yemen and Oman has driven some wild rhino populations to the brink of extinction. Further, rare animals are in some countries viewed as a delicacy: hence the consumption of clouded leopard and sun bear in China and gorilla in African cities. With this dismal record, Is it possible that fashion could ever drive the recovery of a species? A new article in The Wall Street Journal suggests this may be occurring in South America with the vicuna, a diminutive llama that lives high in the Andes.


Largest tropical glacier retreating at 200 feet per year in Peru
(2/18/2007) Peru's largest glacier is melting rapidly and could complete disappear by 2012 says a glaciologist from Ohio State University. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco last week, Dr. Lonnie Thompson said that Peru's Qori Kalis glacier is melting at a rate of some 60 meters (200 feet) per year. Qori Kalis glacier is part of the Quelccaya Ice Cap, the largest body of ice in the tropics.


Lost civilization found in Peru
(1/19/2007) Explorers have found ruins of a little known civilization deep in the cloud forests of the Peruvian Amazon. The Chachapoya, as the group is known, was a fierce tribe that battled the mighty Inca empire before the arrival of European conquistadors in the 16th century.


Can we save the rainforests? Lessons from the Amazon
(5/5/2006) When I think back over the last month, dozens of images come to mind. I am reminded of the many things we have learned during Project Peru 2, and the challenges that our team has overcome with your guidance and help. In a way all of the plants and animals in the rainforest rely on each other to survive in the same way that Warren, Ruben, Anna, Patrick, and I rely on each other.


Exploring the Flooded Streets of Iquitos, Peru
(4/9/2006) Belen is on the edge of the large city of Iquitos. Belen is unique because much of the city is covered in water for most of the year. From January to May the streets, soccer fields, and gardens are underwater. Many of the houses are built on rafts that float up and down as the river rises and falls. Other houses are built on stilts so that the water does not cover the house when the water rises. The floating city was full of life: people paddling canoes, children swimming and laughing, people going about their daily lives in houses floating on the Amazon River.


The Adventure Begins: Wilderness Classroom in Peru
(4/5/2006) We boarded a plane in Chicago at 6 pm on Saturday energized and excited about our trip to Peru. When our plane landed in Lima early on Sunday morning, we were very tired and ready for bed. I think traveling 500 miles per hour at 35,000 feet that makes it hard for me to sleep on airplanes. I think Anna and Patrick were having the same problem.


Evidence of early maize cultivation and agricultural trade uncovered in Peru
(3/7/2006) Maize, better known as corn in some parts of the world, was cultivated by people living in the Peruvian Andes of South America about 1,000 years earlier than previously believed reported a team of researchers last week.


Malaria linked to Amazon deforestation
(2/2/2006) A pair studies in the Amazon rainforest suggest a link between deforestation and an increased risk of malaria. The first study, conducted in the Peruvian Amazon and published in January's issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, found that malaria epidemics in the region were correlated with deforestation. The later research, released in last week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that forest clearing around settlements in the Brazilian Amazon increases the short-term risk of malaria by creating areas of standing water in which mosquitoes can lay their eggs.


China moves into Peruvian rainforest in search of oil
(12/8/2005) Peru signed an $83 million contract with China National Petroleum Corporation allowing the Chinese firm to explore for oil in the country's southeastern rainforests, arguably the most biodiverse place on earth.


Evolutionary history of the origin of potatoes revised -- study
(10/4/2005) Humans have cultivated potatoes for millennia, but there has been great controversy about the ubiquitous vegetable's origins. This week, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, a team led by a USDA potato taxonomist stationed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has for the first time demonstrated a single origin in southern Peru for the cultivated potato.


Amazon river at record low levels; deforestation blamed
(9/30/2005) The Amazon River in Peru is at its lowest level in 30 years of record keeping according to a report in Peruvian daily newspaper El Comercio. Local officials say deforestation is the likely culprit of the low water levels. While variable water levels are characteristic of the Amazon river ecosystem, the increasingly extreme fluctuations are of great concern.


Global warming shrinks sacred glacier in the Andes
(7/6/2005) The melting of a glacier in the Peruvian Andes due to global climate change is impacting the religious practices of local people, according to an article run last month in The Wall Street Journal.


Peru: Environmental Profile
(2/15/2005) An overview of tropical rainforets found in Peru. Includes forest cover and deforestation statistics.



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