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TAMBOPATA
Clear mountain streams
rush down through the steep folds of the Andean foothills, spilling into a
wild, untamed and uninhabited rainforest know as “Tambopata.” It is a
diverse wilderness of massive hardwoods whose mighty buttressed trunks
support the forest canopy, a little know realm of plants and animals.
Located in the Amazon basin of southern Peru, near the Bolivian border,
Tambopata is part of a 2.21 million-acre watershed earmarked for national
park status. It is situated within the vast 3.7 million acre
Tambopata-Candamo Reserve Zone, a region composed of lowland, montane,
cloud, and rivervine forests surrounding palm swamps and bamboo thickets.
Tambopata is an ecological mélange. Here, exist an estimated 1,200 species
of birds – fully one-sixth of the world’s total. In addition, 200 species
of mammals, 90 frog species, 1,200 butterfly species and 10,000 species of
higher plants are protected in the reserve.
Tambopata Research Center
(I’m front row; in shorts and cap)
Weighing & measuring
The magnificent Macaw
Clay Lick at Tambopata
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