12 rapid

Overview of Results
LANDSCAPE AND SITES VISITED
For three weeks in August 2003, the rapid biological inventory team surveyed
upland and floodplain forests, lakes, rivers, and swamps at the heart of the
currently proposed 1.9 million-ha Reserved Zone (Figure 2). We focused on three
remote sites in the headwaters of the Yaguas, Ampiyacu and Apayacu rivers, a
region previously unvisited by biologists. At the same time, the social team was
visiting 18 indigenous communities bordering the proposed Reserved Zone and
discussing local initiatives to establish a new conservation landscape.
Although northern Peru is famous for extreme environmental
patchiness—epitomized by the white sand islands around Iquitos—the landscape
of the proposed Reserved Zone, bounded by the Putumayo River to the north and
the Amazon and Napo rivers to the south, is relatively homogeneous in soils,
geology and climate. Seen from above, in satellite images and overflights, endless
low hills stretch west, east, and north into Colombia, dotted with thousands of
tiny palm swamps. We found no obvious environmental gradients in the areas we
visited, and no white sand soils, though the contrast between the classic
blackwater river that drains the northern portion of the area (the Algodón) and
the primarily whitewater rivers that drain the central and southern portions hints
at some important large-scale soil differences.
The warm, wet, and humid climate here and across most of Loreto is
technically aseasonal, in that no month sees less than 100 mm of rain. Annual
rainfall is 3 m, typically peaking in March and November and lowest in June and
February. This relatively predictable picture is punctuated occasionally by short
and catastrophically violent windstorms, which can topple thousands of trees in a
matter of minutes.
VEGETATION AND FLORA
Because of their proximity to Iquitos, forests along the southern border of the
proposed Reserved Zone—especially near Pebas and the Sucusari River—have
been relatively well studied by botanists. By contrast, forests in the central and
PERÚ: AMPIYACU, APAYACU, YAGUAS, MEDIO PUTUMAYO ABRIL/ APRIL 2004 123