Cerro de Pasco
Cerro de Pasco is a city in central Peru, located at the top of the Andean mountains. It is the capital of the Pasco region, an important mining center. At 4,330 metres elevation, it is one of the highest cities in the world, the highest or the second highest city with over 50,000 inhabitants, with elevation reaching up to 4,380 m in the Yanacancha area, it is connected by rail to the capital Lima, as far as 300 km. Cerro de Pasco became one of the world's richest silver producing areas after silver was discovered there in 1630, it is still an active mining center. The Spanish mined the rich Cerro de Pasco silver-bearing oxide ore deposits since colonial times. Sulfide minerals are more common in the Atacocha district however. Francisco Uville arranged for steam engines made by Richard Trevithick of Cornwall, England, to be installed in Cerro de Pasco in 1816 to pump water from the mines and allow lower levels to be reached. However, fighting in the Peruvian War of Independence brought production to a halt from 1820 to 1825.
Three major mines in the area include the Machcan and Milpo. SIlver ore occurs in hydrothermal veins or as sulfides and clay minerals replacing the Jurassic Pucara limestone. Porphyry dacite stocks are found intruded near the Atacocha and Milpo mines along the Atacocha Fault. Compania Minera Atacocha started operations at the Atacocha Mine in 1936. Ore minerals include sphalerite. Contamination of the environment by lead and other heavy metals has precipitated a public health crisis in the city, but a 2006 law proposing to evacuate all inhabitants and relocate the city has not yet culminated in concrete action. At 4,330 metres above sea level, Cerro de Pasco has an Alpine tundra climate with the average temperature of the warmest month below the 10 °C ) threshold that would allow for tree growth, giving the countryside its barren appearance; the city is the largest in the world with this classification. Cerro de Pasco has humid and cloudy summers with frequent rainfall and dry, sunny winters with cool to cold temperatures throughout the year.
Snowfall occurs sporadically during any season and is most around dawn. The average annual temperature in Cerro de Pasco is 5.5 °C and the average annual rainfall is 999 mm. Daniel Alcides Carrión Yanacocha Toquepala mine
Peruvian Amazonia
Peruvian Amazonia is the area of the Amazon rainforest included within the country of Peru, from east of the Andes to the borders with Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia. This region is marked by a large degree of biodiversity. Peru has the second-largest portion of the Amazon rainforest after the Brazilian Amazon. Most Peruvian territory is covered by dense forests on the east side of the Andes, yet only 5% of Peruvians live in this area. More than 60% of Peruvian territory is covered by the Amazon rainforest, more than in any other country. According to the Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon, the spatial delineation of the Peruvian Amazon is as follows: Hydrographic criteria or basin criteria: 96,922.47 km2. The Peruvian Amazon is traditionally divided into two distinct ecoregions: The lowland jungle is known as Omagua region, Anti, Amazonian rainforest or Amazon basin; this ecoregion is the largest of Peru, standing between 1,000 meters above sea level. It has warm weather with an average temperature of 28 °C, high relative humidity and yearly rainfall of 260 cm.
Its soils are heterogeneous, but all have river origins. Because of high temperatures and high rainfall, they are poor soils with few nutrients; the jungle contains long and powerful rivers such as the Apurimac, Amazon, Ucayali, Marañón, Yavarí, Pastaza, Madre de Dios, Manu and Tigre. The Apurimac River is the source of the Amazon River; the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, the Allpahuayo-Mishana National Reserve and the Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Regional Conservation Area are within the forest. The highland jungle is called Rupa Rupa region, Andean jungle, ceja de selva; this ecoregion extends into the eastern foothills of the Andes, between 1,000 and 3,800 m above the sea level. The eastern slopes of the Andes are home to a great variety of fauna and flora because of the different altitudes and climates within the region. Temperatures are warm in the cooler in higher altitudes. There are many endemic fauna because of the isolation caused by the rugged terrain of the area; the Peruvian Amazon jungle is one of the most biologically diverse areas on Earth.
As a nation, Peru has the largest number of bird species in the world and the third-largest number of mammals. Peru has a high number of species of butterflies and other organisms; this table was elaborated by Edwin Jesús Villacorta Monzón, with data obtained among many sources from years 1997, 2001 and 2006. Although it is the largest region of Peru, the Peruvian Amazon is the least populated, it is home to 5% of the country's population. Many indigenous peoples, such as the Aguaruna, Cocama-Cocamilla and the Urarina, inhabit the jungle, some in relative isolation from the rest of the world; the primary cities located in the Peruvian Amazon include: Lowland jungle Iquitos with 500,000 inhabitants at 104 m Pucallpa, with 380,000 inhabitants at 154 m Yurimaguas with 140,000 inhabitants at 182 m Puerto Maldonado with 104,000 inhabitants at 139 m Tarapoto with 181,000 inhabitants at 350 m Jaén with 86,743 inhabitants at 729 m Moyobamba with 77,000 inhabitants at 860 m Bagua with 65,000 inh. at 400 m Rioja with 60,000 inh. at 848 m Over the last decades illegal logging has become a serious problem in the Peruvian Amazon.
In 2012 the World Bank estimated. This uncontrolled deforestation could negatively affect the habitats of indigenous tribes, the Peruvian biodiversity and of course the climate change. Moreover, illegal deforestation might lead to more violent crimes; this has been demonstrated on 1 September 2014, when four indigenous leaders were murdered, including the famous environmental activist Edwin Chota. These leaders were asking for governmental protection against illegal loggers, after being threatened several times. Due to this, illegal loggers are being blamed for the assassination. In an attempt to support local incomes in the Amazon, the Peruvian government granted non-transferable contracts to individual farmers to perform small-scale logging activities. Soon however, big logging companies started paying individual loggers for the use of their contracts and established an illegal, large-scale logging industry. In 1992 the National Institute of Natural Resources was founded to guarantee a more sustainable use of national resources.
Yet, this institution has never been able to carry out its task due to several reasons. First of all, INRENA lacked sufficient resources compared with the magnitude of their responsibilities. Next to this, corruption was a problem in several layers of the organisation. Moreover, until INRENA was part of the Ministry of Agriculture; this suggests that INRENA was not independent. In 2000 Peru modified the Wildlife Law in order to improve the logging sector. In the subsequent years however, the situation in the Peruvian timber industry only deteriorated. To some extent this can be explained by the fact that Brazil illegalised the exports of mahogany (one of the most valuable and endangered types
Tropics
The tropics are the region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. They are delimited in latitude by The Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at 23°26′12.4″ N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at 23°26′12.4″ S. The tropics are referred to as the tropical zone and the torrid zone; the tropics include all the areas on the Earth where the Sun contacts a point directly overhead at least once during the solar year - thus the latitude of the tropics is equal to the angle of the Earth's axial tilt. The tropics are distinguished from the other climatic and biomatic regions of Earth, which are the middle latitudes and the polar regions on either side of the equatorial zone; the tropics contain 36 % of the Earth's landmass. As of 2014, the region is home to 40% of the world population, this figure is projected to reach 50% by the late 2030s. "Tropical" is sometimes used in a general sense for a tropical climate to mean warm to hot and moist year-round with the sense of lush vegetation.
Many tropical areas have a wet season. The wet season, rainy season or green season is the time of year, ranging from one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region falls. Areas with wet seasons are disseminated across portions of the subtropics. Under the Köppen climate classification, for tropical climates, a wet-season month is defined as a month where average precipitation is 60 millimetres or more. Tropical rainforests technically do not have dry or wet seasons, since their rainfall is distributed through the year; some areas with pronounced rainy seasons see a break in rainfall during mid-season when the intertropical convergence zone or monsoon trough moves poleward of their location during the middle of the warm season. When the wet season occurs during the warm season, or summer, precipitation falls during the late afternoon and early evening hours; the wet season is a time when air quality improves, freshwater quality improves and vegetation grows leading to crop yields late in the season.
Floods cause rivers to overflow their banks, some animals to retreat to higher ground. Soil nutrients erosion increases; the incidence of malaria increases in areas. Animals have survival strategies for the wetter regime; the previous dry season leads to food shortages into the wet season, as the crops have yet to mature. However, regions within the tropics may well not have a tropical climate. Under the Köppen climate classification, much of the area within the geographical tropics is classed not as "tropical" but as "dry", including the Sahara Desert, the Atacama Desert and Australian Outback. There are alpine tundra and snow-capped peaks, including Mauna Kea, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Andes as far south as the northernmost parts of Chile and Argentina. Tropical plants and animals are those species native to the tropics. Tropical ecosystems may consist of tropical rainforests, seasonal tropical forests, dry forests, spiny forests and other habitat types. There are significant areas of biodiversity, species endemism present in rainforests and seasonal forests.
Some examples of important biodiversity and high endemism ecosystems are El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, Costa Rican and Nicaraguan rainforests, Amazon Rainforest territories of several South American countries, Madagascar dry deciduous forests, the Waterberg Biosphere of South Africa, eastern Madagascar rainforests. The soils of tropical forests are low in nutrient content, making them quite vulnerable to slash-and-burn deforestation techniques, which are sometimes an element of shifting cultivation agricultural systems. In biogeography, the tropics are divided into Neotropics. Together, they are sometimes referred to as the Pantropic; the Neotropical region should not be confused with the ecozone of the same name. "Tropicality" refers to the geographic imagery that many people outside the tropics have of that region. The idea of tropicality gained renewed interest in modern geographical discourse when French geographer Pierre Gourou published Les Pays Tropicaux, in the late 1940s.
Tropicality encompasses at least two contradictory imageries. One is that the tropics represent a Garden of a heaven on Earth; the latter view was discussed in Western literature—more so than the first. Evidence suggests that over time the more primitive view of the tropics in popular literature has been supplanted by more nuanced interpretations that reflect historical changes in values associated with tropical culture and ecology, although some primitive associations are persistent. Western scholars theorized about the reasons that tropical areas were deemed "inferior" to regions in the Northern Hemisphere. A popular explanation focused on the differences in climate—tropical regions have much warmer weather than northern regions; this theme led some scholars, including Gourou, to argue that warmer climates correlate to primitive indigenous populations lacking control over nature, compared to northern popul
Department of Ucayali
Ucayali is an inland region in Peru. Located in the Amazon rainforest, its name is derived from the Ucayali River; the regional capital is the city of Pucallpa. The Ucayali Region is bordered by the Brazilian state of Acre on the east. According to the 2007 Census, the Ucayali Region has a population of 432,159 inhabitants, 51.4% of which are male and 48.6% are female. 75.3 % of the population live in urban areas. As of 2002, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática estimated the region's population to be 468,922. Spanish is spoken as a first language by 87.6% of the population, while 4.1% speak Asháninka, 1.5% speak Quechua and 0.1% speak Aymara. Other indigenous languages, including Shipibo, are spoken by 6.6% of the population and 0.0% speak foreign languages. Persons originating from other regions of the country make up 34.7% of the population and 0.2% of residents were born abroad. The largest immigrant groups come from the Loreto Region; the population is spread out with 53.9% under the age of 20, 9.3% from 20 to 24, 25.4% from 25 to 44, 8.8% from 45 to 64, 2.5% who are 65 years of age or older.
Secondary education has been attended by 29% of the population and 2.3% have graduated from non-university higher education, while 1.7% have complete university studies. 49.3 % only have attended 9.1 % have not had any education. The illiteracy rate in the region is 14.2% The region is divided into 4 provinces, which are composed of 14 districts. The provinces, with their capitals in parentheses, are: Atalaya Coronel Portillo Padre Abad Purús El Sira Communal Reserve Purús Communal Reserve Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Pucallpa Gobierno Regional de Ucayali – Ucayali Regional Government website
Department of Ayacucho
Ayacucho is a department of Peru, located in the south-central Andes of the country. Its capital is the city of Ayacucho; the region was one of the hardest hit by terrorism in the 1980s during the guerrilla war waged by Shining Path known as the internal conflict in Peru. A referendum was held on 30 October 2005, in order to decide whether the department would merge with the departments of Ica and Huancavelica to form the new Ica-Ayacucho-Huancavelica Region, as part of the decentralization process in Peru; the bill failed and Ayacucho remained an independent department. The department is divided into 11 provinces; the provinces, with their capitals in parenthesis, are: Cangallo Huamanga Huanca Sancos Huanta La Mar Lucanas Parinacochas Paucar del Sara Sara Sucre Víctor Fajardo Vilcas Huamán According to the 2007 Peru Census, the language learnt first by most of the residents was Quechua followed by Spanish. The Quechua variety spoken in Ayacucho is Chanka Quechua; the following table shows the results concerning the language learnt first in the department by province: Ayacucho Regional Government official website
Ene River
The Ene River is a Peruvian river on the eastern slopes of the South American Andes. HeadwatersThe Ene is formed at 12°15′45″S 73°58′30″W at the confluence of the Mantaro River and the Apurímac River, circa 400 m above sea level, where the three Peruvian Regions Junín, Ayacucho meet; the river flows in a northwesterly direction at a total length of 180.6 km. The Ene River is part of the headwaters of the Amazon River whose origin is at the Mismi south of Cuzco where it first becomes Apurímac River the Ene River and Tambo River before its waters meet the Ucayali River which forms the Amazon. At 11°09′39″S 74°14′48″W the Ene River joins the Perené River at the town Puerto Prado, 295 m above sea level, is called the Tambo from on; the proposed 2,200-megawatt Pakitzapango hydroelectric dam would flood much of the Ene River valley. Protests by the Central Ashaninka del Rio Ene and Ruth Buendia have halted the construction. For her efforts Buendia was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2014.
Media related to Ene River at Wikimedia Commons
Chanchamayo Province
Chanchamayo or Chanchamayu is a province in northern Junín Region, in central Peru. The name of the province derives from the river Chanchamayu, whose source is in the Andean Sierra and flows northwards becoming the Perené River; the province has an estimated population of 151,489, half of whom live in the provincial capital, La Merced. Another important town in the province is San Ramón; the Chanchamayo province is famous for citrus quality coffee growing. The first inhabitants of this territory were Ashaninkas; the first reported European presence in the area dates back to 1635, when Franciscan Fray Juan Jerónimo Jiménez founded the settlement of San Buena Ventura de Quimiri, three kilometres away from present-day Chanchamayo. The province is divided into six districts, each of, headed by a mayor; the districts, with their capitals in parenthesis, are: Chanchamayo San Luis de Shuaro Perené Pichanaqui San Ramón Vitoc Chiri Yaku Kuntur Muyunan Pampa Hermosa Reserved Zone
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