Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [406]
Permits, which are necessary to enter the park, are arranged by tour agencies. Transportation, accommodations, food and guides are also part of tour packages. Most visits are for a week, although three-night stays at a lodge can be arranged.
The best time to go is during the dry season (June to November); Manu may be inaccessible or closed during the rainy months (January to April), except to visitors staying at the two lodges within the park boundaries.
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FUEL FOR FEUDS
In June 2009, a clash between protesters and police in Bagua, near Chachapoyas in northern Peru, resulted in 33 deaths and a further 200 people injured – Peru’s worst crisis since the demise of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas. The indigenous communities were protesting the Peruvian government’s forest and wildlife law granting hydrocarbon companies access to their traditional lands. Continued protests during June and roadblocks by communities resulted in President Alan García’s government suspending (temporarily) the forest and wildlife law that started the controversy.
Manu, Peru’s most prized and protected area of jungle, is an apt illustration of the problem García faces. In 2006 his administration granted concessions for hydrocarbon extraction to Hunt Oil in the east of Manu’s cultural zone. This included the Reserva Comunidad Amarakaeri (RCA), designated a protected zone four years earlier as a biological corridor set aside for sustainable use by tribespeople, stretching to the Brazil–Bolivia border. Local communities reluctantly approved the project management plan provided that the area surrounding the headwaters of the rivers on which they subsisted remained uncontaminated. Yet this was a key area identified for hydrocarbon extraction. A lack of cross-cultural communication resulted in the project getting the green light from four of the eight community leaders, despite their claim to have had little understanding of the implications of signing. Protesters against the legitimacy of the management plan that gave Hunt Oil the go-ahead cite that the meeting was held on December 27th (2007), a distracting time for these people due to the important community celebrations held over this period.
Many organizations are fighting to have this decision overruled. There’s a precedent of foreign companies gaining access to the lands of indigenous communities worldwide when multibillion-dollar contracts are at stake. In neighboring Ecuador, for instance, the Yana Curi Report (1999) cited increased health risks to villages near some of Chevron Oil’s oil fields.) This time, however, the economically regenerative interests of multinationals are being pitted against the popular environmental cause of the stewardship of the world’s largest rainforest. A solution appears a long way off.
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Virgin jungle lies up the Río Manu northwest of Boca Manu. At the Puesto Control Limonal (guard post), about an hour from Boca Manu, a park entrance fee of S150 per person is payable (usually included in your tour). Continuing beyond is only possible with a guide and a permit. Near Limonal are a few trails.
Six hours upstream is Cocha Salvador, one of the park’s largest and most beautiful lakes, with guided camping and hiking possibilities. Half an hour’s boat ride away is Cocha Otorongo, another oxbow lake with a wildlife-viewing observation tower. These are not wide-open habitats like the African plains. Thick vegetation will obscure many animals, and a skilled guide is very useful in helping you to see them.
During a one-week trip, you can reasonably expect to see scores of different bird species, several monkey species and possibly a few other mammals. Jaguars, tapirs, giant anteaters, tamanduas, capybaras, peccaries and giant river otters are among the common large Manu mammals. But they are elusive, and you can consider a trip very successful if you see two or three large mammals during a week’s visit. Smaller mammals you might see