YAGUAS

Roughly the size of Yellowstone in the United States, Peru’s newest national park protects more than 868,000 hectares of virgin Amazonian rain forest in the northern Loreto region. Yaguas is the fruition of decades of persistent lobbying by indigenous communities and environmental groups to prevent its destruction by miners and loggers. Getting there requires several days of overland travel from the nearest city, Iquitos, but those who make the trip will experience a virtually untouched ecosystem that supports 3,000 kinds of flora, hundreds of bird species, and the greatest diversity of freshwater fish in Peru. Notable waterdwelling creatures here include giant river otters, manatees, and endangered pink river dolphins.