PARQUE NACIONAL MANU (MANU NATIONAL PARK)
This
rainforest park is the biggest in Peru and one of the best places in South
America where one can see and enjoy wildlife. Many biologists believe that Manu
has a greater biodiversity than any other park because it starts in the eastern
slopes of the Andes and plunges down into the lowlands, thus covering a wide
range of cloud forest and rainforest habitants. Several Indian groups continue to
live in this park as they have for generations; some of these groups or tribes
had almost no contact with outsiders and avoid to seek contact anyway even if
today. Fortunately, these wishes are respected and although the park is huge,
less than 20% is open to visitation. The rest is the haunt of Indian tribes
(some of them uncontacted) and wildlife, almost untouched by civilization. The
most progressive aspect of the park is the fact that it is very carefully
protected - a rarity anywhere in the world.
The park was formed in 1973, and Unesco
declared the area a Biosphere Reserve in 1977 and a World Natural Heritage Site
in 1987. One reason the park is so successful in preserving such a large tract
of virgin jungle is that it is remote and relatively inaccessible and therefore
has not been exploited by rubber tapers, loggers, oil companies or hunters, so
wildlife is less wary and disturbed than in much of Peru’s rainforest. The
park is divided into Reserve Zone and Park Zone, but there is no real difference
between the rainforest in the two areas. There is also a small Culture Zone
containing a few villages.