Panorama y sitios de muestreo / Overview and inventory sites
Chapter
Overview
abstract
Departamento de Loreto, en la parte noroccidental de la Amazonía peruana, cerca de la frontera con Ecuador. El complejo de nacientes al cual llamamos Cabeceras Nanay- Mazán-Arabela (N-M-A) queda al sur de los ríos Curaray y Arabela, y al norte de los ríos Tigre y Pucacuro. Un mosaico de usos rodea el área: la Zona Reservada Pucacuro al sur y sudoeste, la propuesta Reserva Territorial Napo-Tigre al oeste, la propuesta Reserva Comunal Napo-Curaray al norte y las concesiones forestales al este. Todos los datos y resúmenes del inventario biológico reflejan la propuesta original de 136,005 ha (Fig. 2A, i), entonces se puede considerar los resultados biológicos como una muestra más conservativa de la diversidad de la propuesta actual de 747,855 ha (Fig. 2A). Los datos y resúmenes del inventario social son relevantes para las dos propuestas, irrespectivas de su tamaño. The proposed Reserva Comunal (RC) Matsés is a 391,592-ha area of lowland forest in the Peruvian Amazon, ~150 km from the city of Iquitos at its northernmost edge and ~250 km from Pucallpa at its southernmost edge. The area traces a rough crescent shape as it arches around the western and southern borders of the titled indigenous lands of the Comunidad Nativa Matsés (Figure 2). Situated between the Yaquerana, Gálvez, and Blanco rivers, the proposed RC Matsés forms part of the middle Yavarí River basin, between the Sierra del Divisor to the south, and the confluence of the Yavarí and the Amazonas to the north. Small hills dominate the region: lower and wider ones in the northern portion of the proposed protected area, and steeper and narrower ones to the south. These forests are underlain by a great variety of soils, from nutrient poor white-sand soils to fertile floodplains. Annual rainfall ranges between 2,500 mm in the south and 3,000 mm in the north, with a weakly defined drier season from June through August (Marengo 1998). Average temperatures are ~26C. During the rapid biological and social inventory of the proposed Reserva Comunal Matsés from 25 October to 6 November 2004, the social team surveyed seven communities within titled Matsés lands, while the biological team focused on three uninhabited sites to the north, west, and south of the native communities (Figure 2). In this section we give a brief description of the sites visited by both teams.
