Biodiversity Islands and Dominant Species in Agricultural Landscapes of the South Western Amazon, Perú

Clavo Peralta Z.M.; Vela Alvarado J.W.; Alvez-Valles C.M. · Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation (2022) · DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-92234-4_9

Resumen

The Ucayali region, in the Peruvian Amazon, is characterized by forests that host a mega diversity of species. These forests have been affected by land use changes that were in some cases supported by public policies, such as in the 1960s, that encouraged the inhabitants of the Sierra (highlands) and Costa (coastal) regions of Peru with incentives to populate the Amazon. The majority of settlers in Ucayali were initially from the Sierras and had livestock rearing backgrounds. They became established along the road that connects the Ucayali region with the city of Tingo María in the Huánuco region. Most of them established their pastures by felling nearly all the trees, though fragments of different sizes of primary and secondary forest of different regeneration ages were conserved and used for various subsistence activities. Many farmers value the trees and use live fences as limits of their properties or their paddocks. Over the years, and due to the boom in agro-industrial crops, most farmers reduced their grazing fields to plant oil, palm, and cocoa. The objective of this chapter is to describe these islands of biodiversity and the dominant species in the agricultural landscapes of this region. We describe the characteristics of the Peruvian Amazon with an emphasis on the Ucayali region, its predominant land uses, and the deforestation and degradation therein; the characteristics of the biodiversity islands and their uses; the dominant flora species and their conservation value and adaptation ranges; biological connectivity; and conservation strategies for designing public policies. Effective design of land use or conservation programs in accordance with current needs will only succeed with knowledge and dissemination of the current state of our Amazon. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos; Universidad Nacional de Ucayali