26 June 2015, Mongabay news - A tract of Peruvian rainforest bigger than California's Yosemite National Park  is officially more protected, with formal declaration of the Maijuna-Kichwa  Regional Conservation Area (RCA) made last week in Lima. Those involved with the  reserve's formation hope it will safeguard the area's biodiversity as well as  the ancestral homeland and way of life of local indigenous communities.

Forest near Iquitos, close to where the new reserve is. Photo by Morgan Erickson-Davis.

Northeastern Peru, sandwiched between Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil, still has  large tracts of forest untouched by major human development. The Amazon Basin  begins here, the area serving as the confluence of tributaries draining water  off the Andes into the Amazon River near Iquitos – the largest city on earth not  connected by road to the outside world. The region's forests contain vast  biodiversity, as well as resources for indigenous Maijuna and Kichwa communities  that comprise about 4,500 people.

"We have seven headwater basins within  the reserve, and wildlife zones that serve as a refuge for the many animals that  live in this environment," said Romero Rios, President of the Maijuna Indigenous  Federation. "These forest resources are our market source, as we have medicinal  plants and trees. These resources will sustain us."

However, while much  of northeastern Peru's forests remain intact – especially compared to downstream  areas where agricultural activities are more intense – recent developments have  targeted the area. The Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) recently  made public evidence of increasing  road networks near Cordillera de Azul National Park. And a massive  cacao plantation appeared near Iquitos in 2013, cut largely from primary  rainforest.

Creation of the Maijuna-Kichwa RCA puts in place official  protection of 977,600  acres of forest (1,528 square miles or 3,956 square kilometers) in the  department of Loreto near the Colombian border. The decree calls for the  National Service of Protected Natural Areas by the State to supervise and  protect the area, and includes natural resource usage requirements. However,  these requirements do not extend to timber harvesting.

Work towards the Maijuna-Kichwa RCA began in 2006, when Maijuna representatives  sent a petition to then-Regional President of Loreto asking for the authority to  manage their ancestral land. Since then, it's been a joint effort led by the  Federation of Native Communities Maijuna, the Federation of Native Communities  from Mid-Napo, Curaray and Arabela, and the Regional Government of Loreto.  Nature and Culture International (NCI) also contributed significantly to the  formation of the reserve, as did many other NGOs in Peru and abroad.

"Together we have worked on activities for the sustainable management of the  forest and the aguaje palm swamps," Rios said. "We are managing several  aguajales areas, monitoring and understanding the productivity of these palms,  mapping the extension of aguajales that we have, and recognizing the young  species that require more care from us. With NCI, we have also worked on a  turtle breeding project and in the use of chambira palm fibers."

Studies  have shown that local communities tend to be very  effective at managing land. For example, Brazil's community-held forests  have deforestation rates 22 times lower than outside areas; in Mexico's Yucatan,  community forests show 350 times less deforestation. These forests show even  less deforestation than areas solely managed by governments. But this ability to  curb forest loss only works when communities have the legal rights to their  forests. And now, Peru's Maijuna and Kichwa communities have those rights.

"With the recognition of the Maijuna-Kichwa reserve by the national  government we feel that the doors have been opened," Rios said. "Before we were  saying that we had to look through a little window as we could not make any  progress toward our goals. Now with this open door, we feel we can propose  future projects for the development of the Maijuna and Kichwa people to improve  the livelihood our populations, not only to benefit our own people but also for  the benefit of the entire Loreto region."

Source: http://news.mongabay.com/2015/0626-mrn-gfrn-morgan-new-peru-reserve-declared.html?n3ws1ttr