Under the jungle sun, the stillness of Lake Rimachi, the largest lake in the Peruvian Amazon, is broken only by a Candoshi indigenous boy silently paddling a dugout canoe and a white heron flapping slowly away over the vast expanse of water. Rimachi forms part of an intricate wetland system along the Pastaza River and several contiguous watersheds in northern Peru, near the Ecuadorian border. The area contains seven of the nine possible Amazonian wetland habitat types, including tree- and shrub-studded wetlands, permanent and seasonal freshwater marshes, permanent rivers and streams, and permanent and seasonal freshwater lakes. Designated a Ramsar site two years ago, the 9.4-million-acre (3.8-million-ha) wetlands known as the Abanico de Pastaza or “Pastaza fan” shelter at least... [Log in to read more]