While it's not news to most of us who work in or follow international conservation, Peru's El Comercio newspaper ran a story today about how only 8 park rangers patrol Alto Purús National Park. Alto Purús is the largest national park in Peru and the third largest in all of South America.
Alto Purús "protects" 2,724,263 hectares of tropical rainforest (~ 6.7 million acres). The math's not too challenging on this one. That's almost a million acres for each of the 8 rangers to patrol.
One piece of good news for Alto Purús is that its master plan calls for the park to have 60 rangers by 2010, a goal that the park's superintendent says will be met. One of the park rangers explains that they are only paid 1000 nuevos soles per month (that's about $333 dollars), which is not enough to do more than sustain their needs and some of their travel costs. So it's truly a labor of love for these rangers to help protect the park. In addition to enforcing laws when they can, they also help to educate communities of people living within the park about sustainable development.
As I've argued before, the Amazon Rainforest is probably the most important forest in the world for a number of reasons. While Brazil has the most sizeable portion of the forest (approximately 60%), Peru has the second most at 13% (keep in mind this is still a huge area). To have so few rangers helping to protect it is unacceptable. It is also a fantastic example of why the western model of creating national parks with political boundaries and laws is often not applicable elsewhere in the world.
People who live near national parks need to be involved in mutually beneficial endeavors so that their livelihoods can be maintained and improved while also allowing for the conservation of natural resources. If not, places like the Amazon Rainforest will continue to be deforested rapidly, global climate change will continue to accelerate, and human-caused extinctions of rare plant and animal species will continue.
Image courtesy of andredeak on Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Follow Levi Novey on Twitter: 
Are there still any claims on any of the land in the park from indigenous people? What’s your sense of the “buy-in” for national parks in Peru?
Tim, it really differs. Alto Purus is where the famous “uncontacted tribes” reside who were photographed “for the 1st time” last year. They are threatened because of illegal logging. On the other hand, I just read this article: http://www.livinginperu.com/blogs/features/1023
The article suggests that some communities are buying into the idea of parks, but as I’ve written on ecopolitology before, some indigenous communities think it’s a land grab that will take away their sovereignty and rights.
I think most Peruvians support national parks conceptually, but only as long as they provide economic opportunities for people.
Hola, estudio la cultura de los pueblos nativos. Me gustaria visitar el pueblito Mashco Piro o Akuntsuguía en el Alto Purus? Conoces a un guía que puede acompañarme?
Gracias