Each year, Peru loses more than 140,000 hectares of forests, an area greater than the surface of Hong Kong, according to numbers estimated in 2019 from the Ministry of the Environment, and with them biological diversity that has not yet been registered for the world is also lost.
It is for this reason, we saw the need of the intervention of travelers who came to our lodges in the preservation of forests and, since 2016, we developed Wired Amazon, a citizen science program in which each traveler actively participates in our scientific projects for conservation in the Amazon rainforests of Tambopata, where the Discovering New Species project helps us discover species of tiger moths never before registered for science.
Discovering new species light trap by Rainforest Expeditions
In this way, travelers who arrive at Refugio Amazonas and the Tambopata Research Center in the Tambopata National Reserve, have the opportunity to become citizen scientists after receiving adequate training and under the supervision of our field researchers. The travelers collect samples and data of the specimens, and this goes through a rigorous process of discrimination through the specialist Juan Grados, associate researcher at the Natural History Museum of the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, continuing with a verification of the genetic code through the Bold System of the University of Guelph in Canada, to be finally described by the specialist; it means, to be officially named for science and to register in the history of humanity.
But all these efforts have been 100% financed by ecotourism from our lodges. This effort was paused due to the development of the COVID-19 pandemic and it was in June 2020, thanks to the support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation that we have been able to continue with the Discovering New Species project at the Tambopata Research Center in the Tambopata National Reserve. The development of this would not have been possible without the support of Sernanp and the Natural History Museum of the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, and the hundreds of on-site travelers and online participants who have become allies for the conservation of the Peruvian Amazon.
Apu mooreorum a new species in honor to Gordon and Betty Moore Fundation
Apu mooreorum Grados, 2021 is a species of tiger moth that honors the exceptional support done by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in the conservation of the Andean and Amazonian forests in Peru.
