Shades of the Blue Mountains

It is said that the complex Cordillera Azul is the most geographically diverse region in Peru. Crossing it from one end to the other is far from child's play, and that is what the biologist Kjeld Nielsen set out to do. This close collaborator of RUMBOS travelled through the cloud forests of San Martin to the Amazon lowlands of Loreto, and made an unforgettable week-long journey on foot and by raft from the Huallaga river basin to that of the Ucayali.

Text and photos: Kjeld Nielsen

Unaccustomed to the tremendous slopes of the highland forest, Julio, a park ranger from the Loreto side of the Cordillera Azul National Park (1,350,190.85 hectares) was the first to hurriedly tear the leaf covering from one of the energy-providing chicken "juanes" that constituted our breakfast. Ahead, the slope on the opposite bank of the Ponasa River marked the beginning of our reconnaissance trip. 

It was the park rangers of INRENA who recommended that we leave before dawn to avoid the hot sun. We began the route along a track passing through a few coffee plantations and disorderly smallholdings. The heat was unbearable. After an hour's walking shade remained elusive. The original group of ten began to split up in search of ways to refresh themselves in the few streams that retain their original courses among the "shapumbales" - ferns that thrive on the damaging practice of slash and burn. In this buffer zone immigration from the exhausted lands of the high Andes has spelled doom for great swathes of mountain forests. More than one-third of the forest has given way to smallholdings - and these smallholdings are poor.

We approached the park. Almost as if somebody had turned on an air conditioner, on leaving the smallholdings behind and entering the cool and damp forest one could physically sense the need for healthy vegetation to provide shade, regulate the climate and balance our environment. In nearby areas, such as Picota, deforestation in the last fifteen years has meant that rainfall figures have fallen by half. 

Tremendous Dawn 
Lucho Benites, head of the park and an expert when it comes to trekking through these forests, told us that since this protected area was created the smallholdings' advance has been halted and, little by little, the inhabitants themselves have begun to improve their practices and protect the forests that were now providing us with a respite. Almost four and half hours later we arrived at Chambirillo, the highest point of our journey and where we would spend our first night in the park, at an altitude of 1,150 metres.

We awoke in Chambirillo, one of fourteen control points in the park, on the crest of the Cordillera Azul. Among the clouds, we hiked to a viewing point built by the park rangers. The purple tones of the pre-dawn sky gradually gave way to one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen. It was as if we had shaken a great green carpet as the forest-covered hills rolled towards the horizon, finally giving way - as far as the eye could see - to the faraway Amazon lowlands. Healthy, protected forests: this was the Cordillera Azul, and today we would trek down from it. 

Santos, a park ranger friend, walked ahead, clearing the trail with a machete. During the rest periods we drank cold water from the streams and listened to Santos tell us that this used to be the route for transported mahogany, cedar and other fine woods carried on the shoulders of the ancient inhabitants of the forest for miserable pay. He showed us some of the abandoned dressed timber that lies as a testament to the involved strategy implemented in the park to achieve the peaceful exit of the loggers (see box). Eight hours later we reached our next campsite on the banks of the Uchpayacu River. 

Oars in Hand
For our third day's travelling, the park rangers had prepared four solid balsa wood rafts and we embarked that morning on a primitive reminder of the origins of white water rafting. 

The stream of clear water in which we had refreshed ourselves the day before was now a fast-flowing river of murky water with rapids that tested those of us who were using a "tangana" (a large oar) for the first time.

We spotted deer, tapirs and even a giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), a species previously unrecorded within the park. The river's flow diminished, the cold increased, and several broken "tanganas" later we arrived at the mouth of the Uchpayacu, at its confluence with the Cushabatay River. 

New Species
The next day, our fourth, we set off again, this time in a "peque peque" (an outboard motor boat). The Cushabatay River, much more fast-flowing than the Uchpayacu, would take us as far as the eastern limit of this sector of the park. However, the motorboat was a mixed blessing, for we often had to get out of the boat and refloat it when the motor snagged on the muddy river bed. After four hours we reached Pucacurillo and left the park. We had lost one thousand metres in altitude since Chambirillo. 

We camped on one of the widest and most beautiful beaches on the Cushabatay and used the opportunity to make a survey of the fauna in this park which, according to Alvaro del Campo, the director of CIMA (Centre for Conservation, Investigation and Management of Natural Areas) operations, "produced more than 30 species new to science in less than 20 days" in an inventory organised by the Chicago Field Museum in 2000, the results of which led to the park's creation the following year. 

We woke very early the next day to travel downstream along the Cushabatay until a racket in the undergrowth alerted us to the presence of dozens of peccaries (Tayassu pecari), illustrating an important principle of wild fauna management: that which states that if we protect an area like the park then it will prosper as a source of resources for surrounding areas. By the end of the afternoon we had reached the control point at the mouth of the Pauya River. 

Of Children and Turtles
The sixth day began. At the control point an artificial beach protected by metal fencing and monitored daily by park rangers is home to 124 nests containing some 3,000 taracaya turtle eggs (Podocnemis unifilis) collected for their own protection from the beaches of the Cushabatay and Pauya rivers. At a similar beach in the village of Belaunde - a couple of hours downriver - we would see how with the help of park rangers children from the local school saw the birth of the fruit of this management and care. A lasting, practical lesson in conservation. 

After 114 km on foot, raft and motorboat our expedition came to an end. We had seen that despite the dangers that threatened the park in its first years, the Cordillera Azul has reached its fifth year in better shape than many of its contemporaries. Let us hope its success is continued. 

Combating Illegal Logging in the Cordillera Azul

A successful strategy that is showing good results in this protected natural area.

Text: Fernando Rubio del Valle *

Aside from the challenge of forming a team of park rangers and the logistics that process implies, there are other factors to consider if success is to be achieved in the fight to stop illegal logging. Most important is the need to be able count on the support of local communities - which is not easy given the short-term economic impact of such measures. We are talking about cash in hand for people in dire need of an improved income. Many other activities are linked to the logging industry, such as the sale of food, alcoholic drinks and even prostitution. There is also the opportunity of commissions (or bribes), which often received by local authorities in return for collusion with the loggers. 

But that is not all: In some cases resistance to the implementing of such strategies comes from people who are not affected, but who do receive tendentious comments from loggers and their allies designed to generate opposition to conservation and its advocates… "They say the Park belongs to gringos; the President sold it"… "Once they get all the loggers out they will make these forests theirs"… "Soon they won't even let you work your smallholding, or fish or hunt an animal"… "They will even sell us bottled water, can't you see that the next world war will be fought for the water we have in our mountains?" These are just some of the rumours the loggers spread to discredit environmentalists, and they spread like wildfire throughout the Park's thousand kilometres. 

And so it is that when a strategy to remove the loggers is implemented, local communities are quick to run to the defence of this illegal activity in opposition to those who would defend nature. What is needed, clearly, is a balance between strictness and tolerance, between pragmatism and legality, through an approach combining social awareness and the courage of conviction. 

In the Cordillera Azul, despite the aforementioned difficulties, we can say with satisfaction that in all of its sectors - in 90% of the Park - where the strategy to remove loggers which began towards the end of 2001 has been implemented illegal logging has ceased. However, we know that real victory does not lie in achieving success in operations to remove loggers run from outside the communities, but rather in the transfer of power to local inhabitants and the local authorities, thereby enabling them to inform themselves, organise, sanction, denounce and supervise, as well as acquiring the necessary confidence to use the law to their advantage. We should also give due recognition to the efforts of the official and volunteer park rangers - who are currently engaged in the Aguaytia sector of the forest - as well as to the field personnel of CIMA, who are working closely with them. 

*Well-known forestry expert 

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