When Miguel Lleellish went looking for endangered Peruvian ecosystems that lie outside the national protected-areas network, he had no trouble finding examples. There were the mangrove stands cut off from once-adjacent dry forest by plum plantations, high Andean bogs being sucked dry by mines and a wetland on the coastal Peruvian flyway where an evangelical community had built a church and houses. Such places “are being seriously threatened, and there are many similar cases,” says Lleellish, a biodiversity and wildlife specialist with the National Institute of Natural Resources (Inrena). Lleellish’s study for Inrena, completed last year, is the first of its kind in Peru. It resulted in a list of priority conservation targets that would appear to signal a need for changes in... [Log in to read more]