The wetlands of the Pastaza-Marañón basin in northern Peruvian Amazonia are record-breaking: situated in the centre of one of the largest remaining areas of intact forest on the planet, they contain the largest known peatland complex in Amazonia. Thick layers of organic matter accumulate where the soil remains constantly wet and the large quantities of below-ground carbon make these the most carbon-dense of all Amazonian forests. The purpose of this article is to address this question by firstly documenting the history of the scientific exploration of these ecosystems, which helps to place these wetland forests in their regional and global context. Secondly, we explore our emerging knowledge of the relationships these forests have with people. In particular, we discuss the threats faced by these communities and their forests and the actions that are required to ensure that these ecosys...

New infrastructure that seeks to connect Iquitos with Saramiriza includes building a ~350-km paved road alongside the Tigre river in Loreto. This project is a threat to the conservation of one of the largest areas of tropical forest on the planet and the largest and deepest peatlands in the Amazon basin. In this study, focused on the second section of the proposed road (Huambé – Marsella), we used a “business-as-usual” scenario (BAU) and a “road” scenario to show that road construction would lead to substantial loss of forest cover and increase CO2 emissions. The current loss of forest cover in a buffer zone of 20 km around the Huambé-Marsella road, estimated up to 2018, was 3.4 %. Using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network, we estimated deforestation of 80 071.11 ha and emissions of 35.55 Mt CO2 -eq for the period 2019-2064 in the BAU scenario, while the scenario wi...

New infrastructure that seeks to connect Iquitos with Saramiriza includes building a ~350-km paved road alongside the Tigre river in Loreto. This project is a threat to the conservation of one of the largest areas of tropical forest on the planet and the largest and deepest peatlands in the Amazon basin. In this study, focused on the second section of the proposed road (Huambé – Marsella), we used a “business-as-usual” scenario (BAU) and a “road” scenario to show that road construction would lead to substantial loss of forest cover and increase CO2 emissions. The current loss of forest cover in a buffer zone of 20 km around the Huambé-Marsella road, estimated up to 2018, was 3.4 %. Using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network, we estimated deforestation of 80 071.11 ha and emissions of 35.55 Mt CO2 -eq for the period 2019-2064 in the BAU scenario, while the scenario wi...

Reúne los resúmenes de los trabajos presentados en el Primer Congreso Internacional sobre Amazonia Peruana: Investigación para el Desarrollo, Perspectivas y Retos (CONIAP 2020) desarrollado de manera virtual desde la ciudad de Iquitos, Perú, del 23 al 27 de noviembre del año 2020. El CONIAP contó con la asistencia virtual de más de mil personas de seis países diferentes (Perú, Brasil, Ecuador, Inglaterra, Francia y Estados Unidos), la presentación de más de ciento doce ponencias cortas evaluadas por el Comité Científico, la participación de más de veintisiete ponentes magistrales de académicos de gran prestigio y la puesta en marcha de siete paneles temáticos en los que participaron especialistas y decisores políticos en los temas de importancia para la Amazonía: el agua y sus recursos (hidrobiología, acuicultura y pesca), ecología y uso sostenible de bosques, biodiv...