RBI 02: Cordillera Azul - Espanol - The Field Museum

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RECOMMENDATIONS
This rapid survey has laid the groundwork for the participatory process of conservation design through
preliminary identification of the northern Cordillera Azul region’s ecological context, biological
values, threats, and conservation opportunities. The design process will root the visions, goals, and
strategies for the proposed national park in the region’s biological values and threats to these values. An
agenda for ecological research, inventory and monitoring then can build on these emerging goals and
strategies. Below, we list our preliminary recommendations, the most urgent of which concern the
protection and management of this spectacular landscape and its inhabitants.
Protection
and Management
1) Categorize the “Reserved Zone” as a National Park (Parque Nacional
Cordillera Azul Biabo): National Park status will engender protection of
the many endangered and unique communities in the region and huge, intact
watersheds, by preventing the harvest of timber, extensive conversion of
habitat, and disorganized human colonization. It also will protect the
abundant populations of large mammals and game birds in the region.
2) Adjust the limits of the protected area to follow natural contours of the terrain
(see Figure 3): The proposed limits offer protection to endangered highland
communities—including unusual highland swamps – while forming natural,
easily identified, and easily controlled boundaries for the protected zone
(e.g., rocky escarpments to the west and south).
3) Coordinate management of the protected area with the adjacent lowlands
to the east, now officially classified as logging concessions, to minimize
negative impacts of concession activities on the rich biological communities
of the region.
4) Develop collaborative, ecologically sensitive alternatives for the economic
well-being of residents in the region.
5) Dedicate the southwest corner of the proposed national park to studies of
reforestation techniques (north and west of Santa Lucía, where abandoned
coca plantations cover much of the terrain).
6) Control access to the park by effective monitoring of traffic on the three rivers
to the east (Pauya-Cushabatay, Shaypaya, and Pisqui) near the points at which
they emerge from the escarpment wall.
7) Keep fishing and hunting pressures at present levels (i.e., for subsistence
by local residents only).
8) Develop a management program for Podocnemis turtle and Caiman populations
to ensure their survival even as they are harvested.
RAPID BIOLOGICAL INVENTORIES INFORME/REPORT NO.2