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Articles

Vol. 18 No. 25 (2009)

Cerro Negro: An Important Mountain Tapir Conservation Area in the Piuran Andes, Piura and Cajamarca States, NW Peru

Submitted
8 July 2025
Published
2009-06-01

Abstract

Local Peruvians along with the Andean Tapir Fund are working together to establish a nature sanctuary in the Piuran Cordillera (a.k.a. Cordillera de las Lagunillas) of NW Peru, but must counter the designs of large mining companies. The sanctuary would center around Cerro Negro mountain and be located in both Piura and Cajamarca states. This area contains Peru’s most crucial remaining occupied habitat for the endangered mountain tapir. It is also in the ecologically significant Huancabamba Depression, a region of high species endemism that provides a vital water source for a vast region whose rivers extend east to the Amazon and west to the Pacific, to parts of Ecuador as well as Peru. This sanctuary would provide a biological corridor connecting the mountain tapir population here found, and those of other rare/declining species, by means of free passage to the north, to Ecuador and beyond.

References

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