It is one of the last and best places to study undisturbed primary tropical rainforests. The majority of the park is designated as a restricted area, only open for use by pre-existing indigenous groups including the Machiguenga and Mascho Piro communities, and biological researchers granted permission by the Peruvian Department of Protected Areas.

This winter I had the opportunity, through UCLA’s Biological Field Quarter and the support of the Milken travel fund, to stay at the Cocha Cashu Biological Station in Manu. While there, I worked with my research partner Molly Abroms to plan and conduct a conservation-oriented research project on Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) diversity. This work was made possible by the vast network of indigenous people that make up almost the entirety of the park’s residents. We were dependent on community members for transportation, housing, food, and most importantly their extensive ecological knowledge of the region. The legacy of the success of Manu national park as a site of great research significance can be attributed to its positive relationship with local communities.

Historically, conservationists, governments, and indigenous groups have been at odds about the management of rainforests. Conservationists frequently advocate for the criminalization of bushmeat hunting, agricultural development, and logging in pristine areas, an effort that can be detrimental to local groups that depend on these methods for income and sustenance. Some governments aim to profit on federally controlled land, while others need protected areas to generate income in order to pay park rangers and local authorities. In addition, rainforests offer an untapped income source for many South American countries harboring a wealth of valuable natural resources and potential for ecological tourism or farming. While some American conservationists lobby South American policymakers to limit urban development and expansion into forest, the U.S. has destroyed 75% of all its primary forest since the 1600s resulting in great economic growth. The construction of roads and dams that increases transportation and electricity access to low-income communities comes at the cost of pollution and the destruction of highly endangered habitat. Indigenous people are often trapped in the middle of these continually raging arguments between politicians and scientists about the future of the land they call home.

In order to effectively conserve rainforest habitat these three groups must work together, and Manu demonstrates a long-lasting balance between them. Based on my experience, I saw that a successful collaboration relies on researchers that are educated on indigenous issues, history, and language. In Manu, ongoing research in areas where indigenous communities practice small-scale bushmeat hunting, allows scientists to make recommendations and show that it has not negatively impacted the diversity of the region. This evidence can then be used by local governments to continue to protect indigenous land use rights.

Manu acts as a role model for community conservation and the continued prevention of “helicopter research” in areas like Peru. “Helicopter research” is a term coined for when wealthy organizations from the US or Europe travel to foreign countries to study local ecology and “helicopter back out” again with their newly acquired knowledge without sharing it with the communities they took it from. This practice hurts the entire field of conservation, as it prevents the knowledge from being used to inform the local management practices and it fails to recognize the wealth of indigenous knowledge that could also contribute to scientific understanding.

Additionally, in areas where researchers hope to decrease land use, it is essential to present sustainable income alternatives. It is unreasonable to attempt to criminalize a community's only income. In Manu, local community members made up the rangers and guides that work at the park and the research station staff. The surrounding area was oriented toward ecotourism, with hotels, restaurants, and shops directed toward visitors. Ecotourism is tourism created by travelers wanting to visit endangered or exotic habitats and is a controversial topic in conservation. While it generates increased human traffic which leads to pollution and urban development, it establishes a monetary value for the natural habitat. It is an essential alternative income for communities transitioning away from logging and hunting and provides a personal monetary motivation for locals to conserve the area. Manu National Park’s continued diversity is a testament to its success.

While there, it was an honor to get to see and study this diversity in the field, with our own Lepidoptera study. Butterflies, like most prey, have developed some mechanisms to protect themselves from being eaten. That could mean being brightly colored and poisonous looking, decorated in false eyes and confusing patterns, or camouflaging in the background. But depending on where you look in the rainforest, you might find that a particular strategy is more popular than others, and my research partner and I wondered what those deciding factors might be in determining which strategy comes out on top.

In other words, our study's goal was to define the biotic and abiotic factors that made up four prominent butterfly community types: natural open canopy areas alongside lakes, closed canopy areas alongside lakes, and both open and closed canopy areas found within the forest's interior. We strived to find correlations between butterfly predator evasion strategies and these community types. We found that diversity was higher in low abundance dark areas, while brighter aposematic coloration strategies were prevalent in open canopy regions. We had the opportunity to share these findings with the Department of Peruvian Protected Areas and present them at the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Research Symposium at UCLA this past Spring.