The new Santuario Nacional Megantoni will protect Indigenous Peoples living in voluntarily isolation

Declaration of the Megantoni National Sanctuary with a surface area of 215,689 ha in the district of Echarate in the province of Convención, Department of Cusco (Peru). The main objective is the conservation in an intangible sense of the ecosystems that constitute the mountains of Megantonim, which include 10 biozones with intact forests, the headwaters of a number of river basins, outstanding cultural and biological treasures such as the Pongo de Mainique (a sacred site for the Machiguenga people), numerous threatened species of vertebrates, and species with very restricted distributions or even new to science.

This new Ssanctuary enables the ecological corridor between the Manu National Park and the Vilcabamba complex of protected natural areas to remain intact, and protects an area for the sole use of seven voluntarily isolated indigenous people, thereby preserving their rights over their ancestral lands.