The Peruvian Amazon

In July, I spent two weeks in the Peruvian Amazon, on a research and reporting trip for CAVU, a Costa Rica-based NGO that works throughout Latin America. The Madre de Dios region, widely considered to be the most biodiverse place on Earth, was the focus of our trip. In the span of a single day, we dropped nearly 16,000 feet along the yet-to-be completed Interoceanic Highway, from the spine of the Andes near Cuzco to the Inambari River Valley near sea level in the Amazon lowlands. Our goal: To investigate and expose threats to the region - including a dam mega-project which would inundate this valley, the towns that fringe it and thousands of species - some still unknown to science. For more information, see CAVU's latest newsletter here.