Recovery and Discovery in Peru.

• Author: Young, Kenneth R.
• Position: Change in Rio Abiseo National Park allows researchers to study ecosystem recovery

With generations of undisturbed tropical forest growth, Rio Abiseo National Park holds ecological signposts for the future and shrouded monuments to the past

In Rio Abiseo National Park, in the upper elevations of Peru's eastern Andes, rivers rise and drop, sometimes in less than an hour. Landslides abruptly peal down slopes. Trees fall and other plants strive to occupy the resulting openings in the forest canopy. Perhaps this dynamism seems counterintuitive because, within the forest, the moss-laden trees and cool temperatures create the illusion of living museums, of ancient landscapes. And, in fact, plant growth is not especially fast here, but it is constant--twelve months a year and with ample moisture. If it does not rain every day, there are at least clouds that at certain elevations touch the forests. These mountainous cloud forests receive the full brunt of moisture arising from the western Amazon basin, condensed into rain clouds by the uprising and westward-bound trade winds.

It is easy to imagine, then, that botanical exploration might be difficult, but rewarding. Very few scientists have visited these environs and then only for a short time. New species are waiting to be found as well as unique adaptations to the rigors of the environment. The park is a living laboratory that invites us to examine the recovery of ecosystems--following disturbances caused by natural processes and those created by people in the distant and not-so-distant past.

The fact that the forests of Rio Abiseo National Park can recover is surely one of the few optimistic notes in a chorus of environmental disaster music heard as tropical forests are cut and converted into wastelands. Why and how these forests could regrow is still unknown, but might simply be due to the several centuries that have passed as no person sought to farm or bum these landscapes. Surely the opportunity of examining change after turning over ecosystems to the vagaries of natural processes is one of the principal reasons that a national park should be established. Rio Abiseo provides such "experiments" for researchers to study.

An irony is that although the park's western boundary is a two-day walk from the nearest house, a careful observer will find evidence that people have contributed to change by affecting the vegetation. Trees grow on top of rock walls that formed houses and ceremonial structures five hundred to one thousand years ago. And the use of the high-elevation...