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Bird Watching in Peru
Save Satipo Road - The Poor Man's Manu Road
By Gunnar Engblom, Kolibri Expeditions

Gray-breasted-Mountain-Touc

Santa Rosa de Ocopa - place of the famous Franciscan monastery near Concepción, only 6 hours from Lima, is the start of old Satipo road. This road cuts through an amazing variety of habitat and scenic features. The road passes along scrubby slopes up to the meseta with the bird-rich lake Pomacochas, then descends to Comas and deep gorges reminiscent of Colca Canyon and up again over yet another pass over 4,000 meters before reaching Manzanilla (3,600m) on the east slope. Here there is a small elfin forest and further down the bamboo at Carrizales where some of the sought-after endemics such as the Eye-ringed thistletail and Fiery-throated Metaltail can be found.

The biodiversity is generalized from here to Satipo. There is practically continuous forest cover between Carrizales at 3,200m to Santa Rosita at 850m. There is stunted elfin forest at the upper altitudes, bromeliad-clad temperate forest and super diverse sub-tropical forest lower down. The birds seen on almost every trip include Amazonian Umbrellabird, Versicolored Barbet, Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, Fasciated Tiger-Heron, Torrent Duck, Sunbittern, Masked Trogon, Highland Motmot, Bluish-fronted Jacamar, Solitary Eagle, Black-and-Chestnut Eagle, Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanager, Yellow-scarfed Tanager, Golden-collared Tanager, Grass-Green Tanager, Golden-plumed Parakeet and many others. There are 30 species of Hummingbirds recorded from the road. This road competes with more famous Manu road when it comes to diversity.

However, there is no infrastructure since there are practically no operators that go there - and why should they? They operate the Manu road - and have little interest to develop a cheaper alternative!!

There are a few small villages along the road that are prone to talks about conservation. Kolibri Expeditions has been using the village school at Apaya village as base during camp nights in the area. The lower areas can be accessed from Satipo, where there are hotels.

But the paradise may soon be lost. On my recent visit, the chain-saw noise competed with the birdsong. Areas are being cleared for pastures and agriculture and even the steepest slopes where such practices are impossible have been burnt in some areas. But the trend could be halted by a conservation project with a novel approach.

Key project activities are the following.

• Take the community leaders on an overland trip to Mindo in Ecuador to broaden their horizons. Mindo has changed over the last 10 years from being a place where forest was cut down to become cattle farms to become today a place where people invest in eco-lodges and private reserves. It is today a million dollar center of eco-tourism industry.
• Many good examples (orchid and butterfly gardens, hummingbird feeders, lodges, restaurants, water sports, Cock-of-the Rock licks, etc) will be shown to the community leaders of Satipo road and it will be filmed to later be shown to their communities.
• Build two communal guesthouses in conjunction with the schools in Mariposa and Apaya with 4 to 5 individual 2-bed rooms and a separate WC and shower building to accommodate guests.
• Train some people to provide food. Prepare a recipe booklet with 5 simple main courses that are easy to prepare and palatable to the tourists. A hygiene section is included in the booklet to ensure that the tourists do not get sick.
• Get all the land in the valley officially titled - so that it belongs to someone. Only then can we hope that individuals will start caring about areas that are being cleared. If lots of the land is communal maybe a communal reserve can be set up or the land can be sold to a conservation organization that would want to manage it - and thus release very important funds for urgent social infrastructure - or communal projects like a trout farm.
• Some land may be sold to foreigners that may either want to start an eco-business or just find a diversity-rich area to settle down when they retire. This will both release funds for other causes as well as generate investments to the area.
• Market the area to 4x4 overland excursions from Lima and among tour operators in Lima and Huancayo.
• Not only birdwatching makes this area interesting. It is very suitable for mountain-bike down-hill set-ups, hiking, butterfly and orchid watching, rafting and in general a very scenic route to take with very little traffic on the road during daytime. In a day maybe 5 vehicles pass!

Around Easter, a special Satipo road birdwatching tour is scheduled to raise funds for the project. With US$ 3,000, we could take 5 community leaders to Ecuador for 12 days (5-6 days in Ecuador and a visit to the communal reserve at Chaparri near Chiclayo). If we can find only 30 donors of US$ 100 to this project we could start right away. Contact gunnar@kolibriexpeditions.com if you like to help with this project or want to visit Satipo Road.

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