Looming over the Cordillera Blanca, Mount Huascarán is Peru’s highest peak, and the national park that bears its name is the crown jewel of Peru’s Andean protected areas. By the end of this century, however, the dramatic park, earmarked for protection since 1975, might not be recognizable. As the ice caps that give the mountain range its name shrink at the rate of about 10% a decade, the hundreds of glaciers in Huascarán National Park are almost certainly doomed. Plants and animals, meanwhile, will have to adapt to a warmer, drier climate on the peaks, while farmers and hydroelectric-dam operators learn to live without dry-season melt water. Throughout Latin America, protected areas are caught in a double bind. Encompassing river headwaters, forests, bogs... [Log in to read more]