On a more optimistic note, a report just published by MAAP showing deforestation tendencies in the Amazon basin from 2000 to 2019 claims that in the Peruvian Amazon deforestation was 140,000 hectares less in 2018 than in 2017, although it still continues apace. The Peruvian government’s official figure is a more optimistic 154,700 hectares. The estimate for 2019 is a continued tendency towards reduction (134,600 hectares).

MAAP identifies the following hotspots where deforestation is most severe in the Peruvian Amazon:

  • a new Menonite colony near Tierra Blanca in Loreto region which deforested over 1,000 hectares in 2019;
  • the Ucayali and Huánuco regions where concentrated, small-scale deforestation is taking place, principally for cattle raising;
  • along the Ene River in the Junín and Ayacucho regions; and
  • the Madre de Dios region where there is severe deforestation for agriculture near Iberia and near the Tambopata National Reserve and in the Bahuaja Sonene National Park for both agriculture and gold mining.