Tarapoto

In response, Peru’s national parks authority said by email that two anthropologists helped establish the park, and a Kichwa community group was present at one meeting in the nearest city, Tarapoto, to discuss it in 2001, but no concerns were raised.

A bus from Lima to Tarapoto should take about 24 hours and cost about $30; a flight should take about an hour and 15 minutes and cost about $150.

Cargo ships to Iquitos leave Yurimaguas year-round and can be reached via the city of Tarapoto, about 600 miles northeast of Lima.

Navarro, 41, was raised in the Amazon city of Tarapoto and got his renewable resource management degree in the early 1990s in the eastern Andean foothills at Tingo Maria, the cradle of the cocaine trade, during the country’s vicious conflict with Shining Path rebels.

In Peru, major centres include the Cusco region and the cities of Pucallpa and Tarapoto, but it is Iquitos that attracts most interest.