Madre de Dios is a region in
southeastern Peru
, bordering
Brazil
, Bolivia
and the
Peruvian regions of Puno, Cusco and Ucayali. Its capital is the
city of Puerto
Maldonado
. The
name of the region is a very common
Spanish-language designation for the
Virgin Mary, literally meaning
Mother of God.
Geography
The region is almost entirely low-lying
Amazon rainforest. The
climate is
warm and damp, with average temperatures around [max. , min ]. The
rainy season is from December to March, when torrential rainfall
causes rivers to swell and often burst their banks. Annual
precipitation can be as much as .
The
south-western boundary with the Cusco
Region is known as the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald, a series of
small mountains that separate the Madre de Dios River
and the Urubamba River
.
Notable
rivers in the Madre de Dios
River watershed
are:
Due to the vast size of the area and its low population density,
rivers provide the best way of getting from one town to another.
Human activity is invariably confined to riverbanks. A number of
explorers have searched for the lost city of
Paititi in the jungle within the region
The only
road of note is between the town of Puerto Maldonado and the city
of Cusco
, away in
Cusco Region. However, it is in
very poor condition and flights between Cuzco and Puerto Maldonado
remain the most common and reliable method of transport between the
two. From Puerto Maldonado there is a road to the mining town of
Laberinto ("Labyrinth") (about long). A second road is between the
village of Atalaya and Cuzco. It is a roughly -long
single track road that is impassable in
the rainy season.
Economy, Natural Resources and Environment
Madre de Dios depends heavily on natural products and raw materials
for its economy. There is virtually no manufacturing industry. The
main agricultural products are:
- Cotton
- Coffee
- Sugarcane
- Cacao beans
- Brazil nuts
- Palm oil
Gold mining is the only other large
industry of the region, confined mainly to the beaches of the
Inambari and Madre de Dios rivers. Contrary to recent propaganda,
this presents both a major environmental and public health problem.
Most gold miners use liquid
mercury to extract gold particles from the
river
silt. They often handle the
toxic liquid mercury with their bare hands. To purify
the gold particles, the mercury is burned off. After being
vaporized, mercury particles contaminate the surrounding
ecosystems. Mercury
bioaccumulates
throughout the
food chain to become
concentrated in top
predators such as large
river fish and carnivorous birds. Exposure to or the ingestion of
mercury have been shown to result in a variety of neurological and
congenital health problems.
Other serious environmental problems in the region include loss of
forest cover for agriculture, illegal selective
logging (particularly for
mahogany) and illegal
poaching of
endangered
species (particularly the
Giant River
Otter, Amazonian
turtles,
caimans, and
monkeys and
macaws as pets).
The national bird of Peru, the
Andean Cock-of-the-rock, is also
found in Madre de Dios and suffers from poaching and habitat
disturbance.
Political division
The region is divided into three
provinces
(provincias, singular: provincia), which are composed of 11
districts (distritos, singular: distrito).
The provinces, with their capitals in parenthesis, are:
Popular Culture
In the novel
Primeval:
Shadow of the Jaguar most of the story takes place in Madre de
Dios, where a time anomaly has opened and let a pack of prehistoric
Thylacosmilus into the modern world.
The region is claimed to be home to many ancient Inca ruins,
several jungle tribes and endnagered species like the capybara,
jaguar and giant river otter.
Places of interest
See also
External links
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