Rapid Biological and Social Inventories – serie

In August of 2005, scientists conducted a rapid inventory in Sierra del Divisor, a mountain range that rises dramatically from the lowlands of central Amazonian Peru. This assessment, presented here in English and Spanish, collects their research on the plants and animals of the region as well as the social and cultural assets of local villages and their use and management of natural resources. The report includes recommendations for conservation and management, including steps to safeguard the voluntarily isolated indigenous people living in the region.

The remote, rugged Cabeceras Cofanes-Chingual is one of the last intact mountainous regions in Ecuador and serves as the most important remaining refuge for endangered, range-restricted flora and fauna of the Ecuadorian Andes. In October 2008 scientists from Ecuador, Peru, and the United States conducted a rapid biological inventory and a rapid social inventory to assess the region's suitability for protection as a municipal reserve. Working closely with local communities and indigenous Cofan, whose ancestral territory abuts the proposed reserve to the south, the teams surveyed the hydrology, geology, soils, vegetation and flora, fishes, amphibians and reptiles, birds, mammals, archaeology, and current human communities. Full and abstracted results of the fieldwork are provided in Spanish and English.